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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


Price,  75  Cents. 


Monism  and  Meliorism, 


PHILOSOPHICAL  ESSAY 


CAUSALITY    AND    ETHICS. 


PAUL    CARUS, 

PH.  D.    (TUBINGEN). 


TAri7.ovrt  6e  to.  ;^;a/)i(T//ara  rd  Kpeirova' 
Kal  £Ti  lids'  i'7Z£p[3o2,^v  bSov  vfj.lv  SeiKvv/uai. 
I  Corinlh.  xii.  31. 


NEW  YORK : 
F.  W.  CHRISTERN,  37  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET. 


Monism  and  Meliorism, 


PHILOSOPHICAL  ESSAY 


CAUSALITY    AND    ETHICS. 


PAUL    CARUS 

PH.  D.    (TUBINGEN). 


Kal  ETi  Kad'  v-irepfiolijv  66bv  v/ulv  deinvvfiai. 
I  Corinth,  xii.  31. 


NEW  YORK;: 
F.  W.  CHRISTERN,  37  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET. 

1885. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1885,  by  Paul  Carus,  at  the  office 
of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  Washington,  D.  C. 


The  Cherouny  Printing  &  Publishing  Co., 
17-23  Vandewater  St.,  New  York. 


^  Jc^>s^.  7 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS, 


PAGES. 

Preface 5-7 

a:  SECTION  I. 


Kant's  Philosophy     .       -       - 9-28 


SECTION  II. 
Causality 29-44 

CO 

''  SECTION  III. 

00 

—        First  Cause  and  Final  Cause 45-55 

5  SECTION  IV. 

The  Trinity  of  Monism 5^-63 

X  SECTION  V. 

-J 

J^  Ethics 64-77 

It. 
(t 

Definitions  and  Explanations  78-83 


4  li«7<f?r-  -;3  ,3 


PREFACE. 

I  DELIVER  to  the  American  public  a  philosophical  system, 
comprised  under  the  name  of  Monism  atid  Meliorism,'^  two 
words  which  have  been  used  by  different  philosophers,  and  which, 
for  some  time,  have  indicated,  as  it  were,  the  direction  of  the 
development  of  philosophic  thought. 

Monism  is  the  ideal  which  no  one  hitherto  has  been  able  to 
realize  satisfactorily,  though  many  have  tried  to  do  so.  It  has 
become,  therefore,  the  watch-word  of  diverse  parties,  who  lacked  the 
solid  basis,  on  which  to  erect  the  building  of  such  a  conception  of 
the  worid,  as  might  be  well  founded  in  its  cornerstone  and  harmo- 
nious in  its  structure. 

The  cornerstone  to  be  chosen  is  causality  and  the  only  criterion 
by  which  any  philosophical  theory  can  be  tested  and  verified,  is 
given  in  its  doctrine  of  ethics.  But  on  both  subjects  the  greatest 
confusion  prevails,  both  of  them  being  problems,  which  still  wait  for 
a  definite  solution.  And  after  so  many  attempts,  a  new  solution,  in 
consonance  with  modern  science,  by  which  the  old  controversies 
may  be  reconciled,  is  extremely  desirable. 

The  novelty  of  the  solution  here  proposed  does  not  consist  in 
bringing  forward  new  and  startling  views  ;  quite  the  contrarj' !    The 

*  We  define  Monism  as  a  conception  of  the  world  which  traces  all  things 
back  to  one  source,  thus  explaining  all  problems  from  one  principle;  and 
Meliorism  as  a  contemplation  of  life,  which  refusing  optimism  as  well  as 
pessimism,  finds  the  purpose  of  living  in  the  aspiration  of  a  constant  progress 
to  some  higher  state  of  existence ;  in  one  word,  in  perpetual  labor  for  ame- 
lioration. 


6  PREFACE. 

true  philosopher  must  endeavor  to  avoid  originaUty  as  much  as 
possible,  and  cling  with  full  concentration  of  mind  to  impartial 
investigation.  Original  ideas  often  allure  and  dazzle  with  a  fine 
brilliancy,  but  they  are  treacherous  owing  to  the  verj-  subjectivit)' 
which  renders  them  so  attractive.  Objectivity  in  philosophical  re- 
search does  not  create  a  sensation,  as  it  does  not  take  men's  fancy ; 
yet,  its  results,  if  true,  will  stand  forever.  And  this  disinterested, 
impartial  objectivity  will  shed  a  new  light  on  questions,  which,  dif- 
ficult in  themselves,  have  been  confounded  and  entangled  by  the 
hatred  and  struggle  of  obtruding  and  intervening  interests. 

The  latest  step  taken  by  the  progressive  party  in  philosophy,  is 
the  theor}-  of  the  Positive  School,  founded  by  INI.  Auguste  Comte, 
supported  by  Mr,  John  Stuart  Mill  and  in  closest  relation  to  the 
system  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  These  gentlemen  say  that  posi- 
tivism has  taken  its  stand  on  positive  facts.  But  Comte  forgot  the 
main  point.  He  did  not  give  any  touchstone,  which  would  enable 
us  to  distinguish,  whether  we  have  to  deal  with  positive  facts  or 
with  illusions.  Kant  did  not  overlook  this  difficulty,  and  it  was 
through  no  mere  child's  play  that  he  took  such  a  seemingly  round- 
about way.  If  he  did  not  succeed,  it  was  merely  because  he  lost 
himself  in  the  intricate  paths  and  windings  of  his  strange  idealism 
and  abandoned  the  problem  of  causality,  from  which  alone  the 
solution  of  philosophical  questions  can  be  expected. 

Convinced  of  the  importance  of  this  topic,  I  venture  an  attempt 
at  unravelling  its  Gordian  knot.  Cutting  the  knot  will  not  do  in 
philosophy,  as  it  certainly  would  in  politics ;  and  so  we  have  to  dis- 
entangle its  intricacies  carefully  and  patiently,  in  hope  that  after  all 
they  may  be  simpler  than  they  seem  to  be. 

The  present  essay  contains  the  chief  points  of  my  argument  and 
I  sincerily  trust  that  I  have  succeeded  so  far  as  to  have  realized  what 
David  Hume  and  Immanuel  Kant  planned,  and  to  have  brought  to 


PREFACE.  7 

a  certain  consummation  what  they  intended  to  do.  I  hold  that  this 
philosophy  of  Monis?}i  and  3felionsm  w'xW  prove  the  natural  outcome 
of  former  systems  and  will  clear  away  many  difficulties  seemingly 
insurmountable. 

The  plan  of  this  little  essay  contains  five  articles,  the  first  of  which 
is  on  Kant  being  merely  an  introduction,  and,  so  to  say,  the  pedestal 
of  the  others,  in  which  the  new  theories  are  propounded.  Causality 
is  the  beginning,  ethics  the  aim  and  end  of  this  philosophy.  These 
two  points  being  fixed,  the  whole  system  is  sketched  in  its  outlines. 
All  other  questions  are  of  minor  importance  and  may  find  their 
answers  by  simply  drawing  inferences  from  what  has  been  stated  on 
causality  and  ethics. 

It  is  superfluous  to  crave  indulgence,  where  I  may  possibly  have 
been  mistaken.  The  task  is  difficult  and  greater  men  than  I  have 
erred  regarding  the  same  topics  which  I  treat  in  this  little  pamphlet. 

If  Kant  compared  his  work  to  that  of  Copernicus,  I  may  fairly 
liken  mine  to  that  of  Kepler  who  filled  out  the  Copernican  system 
and  reduced  the  law  of  motion  of  planets  to  simple  mathematical 
formulae.  The  future  will  show  whether  my  confidence  is  justified 
or  not.  Should  it  prove  excessive,  I  hope,  at  least,  that  this  essay 
will  do  something  to  further  and  give  impulse  to  the  solution  of  the 
deepest,  the  most  important  and  the  most  difficult  problem  of  life, 
so  that  my  work  shall  not  have  been  entirely  in  vain,  nor  my  labor 
altogether  wasted. 

New  York,    1885. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


KANT'S   PHILOSOPHY.* 


§  I.      KANT'S   REVOLUTION   IN   THE   EMPIRE   OF 
PHILOSOPHY. 

KANT'S  greatness  need  not  be  praised  ;  it  is  known 
and  acknowledged  wherever  philosophy  is  studied, 
and  its  enormous  influence  on  the  development  of  Germany 
directly  and  of  humanity  indirectly  may  be  perceived  in 
literature  as  well  as  in  the  policy  of  Church  and  State. 
Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  marks  the  beginning 
of  a  new  era  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  conclusion  of 
a  period  longer  than  a  thousand  years.  What  Luther 
did  for  religion,  and  Copernicus  for  science,  Kant  has 
done  for  philosophic  thought.  He  is  the  representative 
of  the  revolutionary  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
which  produced  new  humanitarian  ideals  and  a  new  ar- 
rangement of  society.  In  France  the  old  throne  of  the 
Bourbons  was  overturned,  and  in  America,  for  the  first 
time,  a  republic  was  founded  on  the  basis  of  individual 
freedom  and  human  rights.  A  deep,  wide  ocean  lies  be- 
tween the  quiet  town  of  Konigsberg,  where  the  German 
philosopher  dwelt,  and  the  shores  of  New  England.  But 
in  spite  of  the  distance,  in  spite  of  the  physical  gap, 
the  movements  on  both  sides  were  the  result  of  the 
same  cause  ;  and,  occurring  in  the  same  century,  were,  at 
the  same  time,  psychically  connected  with  each  other. 
However,  while  the  revolution  in  France  was  social,  and 
that  of  America  political,  the  revolution  inaugurated  by 
Kant  was  philosophic. 

*    This  Lecture  is  not  intended  to  explain   the   system  and  argu- 
mentation, but  merely  the  drift  and  tendency  of  Kantian  philosophy. 


lO  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

The  earthquake  of  the  French  revolution  was  on  the 
surface  ;  that  of  Germany  lay  deeper,  though  its  results 
were  not  perceived  so  quickly  as  those  experienced  un- 
der the  terrorism  in  the  noisy  capital  on  the  banks  of 
the  Seine.  Kant  reversed  the  basis,  on  which  human 
knowledge  and  the  ideas  of  '^  Soul,  World  and  God" 
rested.  He  reversed  it,  and,  pari  passu,  gave  the  de- 
velopment of  human  thought  a  new  direction.  There- 
fore he  was  more  than  a  mere  revolutionist.  Robes- 
pierre and  his  gang  destroyed,  but  were  unable  to  build 
anew. 

Kant  cleared  the  place  where  the  rotten  edifice  of 
metaphysics  had  stood  so  long,  and  at  the  same  time 
contrived  a  plan  for  constructing  another  and  a  better 
building,  which,  as  expressed  by  himself,  would  not  prove 
so  lofty  a  structure,  as  the  dome  of  ontologic  thought 
had  been,  the  bold  spire  of  which  was  raised  to  the 
clouds.  The  edifice  he  proposed  to  build  could  be  likened 
to  a  mansion,  neither  high  nor  grand,  without  steeples 
or  battlements,  but  simple  and  plain,  just  fit  to  live  in. 
The  systems  of  philosophy  before  Kant,  though  divine 
and  magnificent,  like  the  Gothic  cathedral  of  the  Middle 
ages,  were  castles  in  the  air,  enchantingly  splendid,  but 
unsubstantial  and  transient  like  the  Fata  Morgana. 
Kant's  philosophy  is  neither  showy  nor  pretentious,  but 
as  a  compensation  it  has  the  great  merit  of  solidity. 

Before  I  enter  into  details,  let  me  mention  that  such  a 
subject  as  Kantian  philosophy  can  scarcely  be  exhausted. 
If  I  venture  on  so  broad  a  field,  devoting  no  more  space  to 
it  than  one  article  allows,  I  shall  have  to  limit  myself,  or 
we  shall  be  lost  in  the  innumerable  windings  of  a  labyrinth. 
I  shall  confine  myself,  therefore,  to  one  of  the  principal 
points,  which,  though  openly  laid  down  in  Kant's  works, 
has  been  hitherto  rather  too  much  neglected.  I  mean 
his  dtialisvi ;  it,  I  maintain,  has  been  overlooked,  under- 


KANT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  II 

rated  and  misinterpreted  by  many  of  his  disciples  and 
followers,  and  has  usually  been  regarded  as  his  blind 
side.  This  dualism  of  Kant's  will,  I  trust,  prove  to  be 
the  key  to  his  philosophy  and  give  us  admittance  to  the 
work-shop  of  his  strange  ideas. 

Speaking  of  Kant,  I  run  the  risk  of  being  attacked  by 
at  least  half  of  his  adherents,  for,  as  the  Bible  is  inter- 
preted differently  by  different  confessions  and  sects,  so 
Kant's  philosophy  has  been  explained  by  different  men 
in  different  ways,  which  are  often  contrary,  and  even 
sometimes  contradictory,  to  each  other.  Such  a  lack  of 
harmony,  however,  proves  how  little  hitherto  the  Ko- 
nigsberg  philosopher  has  been  understood,  and  how  far 
our  time  is  from  having  outgrown  or  encompassed  the 
gigantic  expanse  of  his  thought. 

§  2.     KANT'S   CRITICISM   IS  A  COMBINATION   OF   HUME'S 
SCEPTICISM   AND   WOLF'S   DOGMATISM. 

Everywhere  we  perceive  in  this  world  antagonistic 
principles  at  war  with  each  other.  For  instance,  in  the 
formation  of  the  earth  two  forces  are  active,  the  centri- 
petal and  the  centrifugal.  And  so  similar  principles,  op- 
posed to  each  other,  govern  the  growth  of  social  and 
political  life  ;  everywhere  there  are  Whigs  and  Tories, 
Republicans  and  Democrats,  under  diverse  names.  The 
same  fact  we  perceive  in  the  empire  of  philosophic 
thought,  and  its  development  seems  to  swing  to  and 
fro  like  a  pendulum  between  the  two  extremes,  giving 
ascendency  now  to  this  and  now  to  that  one.  And  from 
this  very  antagonism  of  hostile  principles  there  starts 
order  and  arrangement.  Both  principles,  seemingly  in- 
compatible and  irreconcilable,  tend  to  the  same  end  and 
each  is  indispensable  in  the  system  produced  by  their 
struggle. 


12  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

The  antagonistic  principles  in  philosophy  were  in  their 
extremes  Spiritiialisiit,  as  propounded  by  Berkeley,  and 
Materialism,  as  defended  by  Condillac,  Holbach,  and 
their  French  friends.  In  a  similar  way,  though  more 
moderately,  it  is  shown  to-day  in  the  Realism  of  modern 
science  and  the  Idealism  of  transcendental  philosophy. 

One  of  these  antagonistic  principles,  the  material- 
ism of  the  French  School,  was  developed  in  the  more 
cautious  English  mind  of  Locke  as  Sensualism,  based  on 
the  doctrine:  Nihil  est  in  intellectii,  quod  no7i  anteafu- 
erit  in  sensu.  And  this  denial  of  any  subjective  basis  of 
knowledge  in  the  human  mind,  or  as  they  used  to  ex- 
press it,  of  innate  ideas,  led  as  a  natural  consequence  to 
Hume's  scepticism.  Simultaneously  Leibnitz's  idealism  in 
Germany  became  crystalised  into  the  systematic  struc- 
ture of  Wolf's  dogmatism.  And  this  opposition  between 
the  British  scepticism  and  the  German  dogmatism  gave 
rise  to  Kant's  criticism.  Being  born  of  a  union  of  these 
bitter  enemies,  his  philosophy  shows  traces  of  both  ; 
and  as  they  are  propounded  independently  of  and  even 
in  a  clearly  exhibited  opposition  to  each  other,  we  may 
call  Kant's  system  fairly  diialistic. 

It  was  perhaps  the  most  difficult  task  for  Kant's  in- 
terpreters to  harmonize  the  antagonistic  principles  and 
make  the  very  contradictory  views  which  he  stated  agree. 
Some  tried  to  deny  the  dualism,  some  eliminated  the  con- 
tradictions in  one  way  or  another,  but  only  a  few,  if  any 
at  all,  openly  accepted  and  acknowledged  it.  Even  Kuno 
Fischer,  who  is  perhaps  his  most  impartial  interpreter,  is 
cautious  about  depicting  Kant  so  fundamentally/dualistic 
as  he  is,  and  treats  his  antinomies  as  a  kind  of  subordi- 
nate part  in  his  system. 

Many-sided  as  he  was,  Kant  suggested  more  than  he 
taught.  His  ideas  are  rather  innuendoes  than  decisions. 
Thus  he  incorporated  the  antagonistic  principles  of  his 


KANT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  1 3 

time  in  his  philosophy,  but  left  the  working  out  of  the 
solution  to  posterity.  However  there  was  no  one  to 
undertake  this  task,  especially  as  in  Germany  a  power- 
ful reaction  ensued  through  Hegel  ;  and  so  every  one 
took  from  Kant  what  he  pleased  and  left  all  other  things 
of  his  alone.  Thus  Kant  gave  on  one  hand  a  solid  basis 
to  build  upon,  yet  no  dogmatic  system  ;  and  on  the 
other  hand,  just  by  his  want  of  dogmatism,  his  critical 
method  invited  and  induced  men  of  different  turns  of 
mind  and  even  of  opposite  directions  to  make  use  of  his 
materials.  Every  one  found  or  could  at  least  find  some- 
thing that  suited  him.  There  were  on  the  one  side  the 
philosophers  of  creed  and  faith,  die  GlaubenspJiilosophen, 
for  instance  Heinrich  Jacobi  ;  on  the  other  extreme, 
atheists  traced  their  very  atheism  back  to  Kant. 

In  the  same  way  all  schools  after  Socrates  took  their 
start  from  him,  and  this  fact  alone  is  sufficient  to  show 
that  both  Socrates  in  Grecian  times  and  Kant  in  our 
modern  days  commenced  a  new  epoch.  Although  the 
period  after  Socrates  can  boast  of  many  glorious  names, 
as  Plato,  Aristotle,  Hippocrates,  Epicurus;  and  others, 
yet  I  do  not  believe  that  it  was  a  time  of  advancement 
and  actual  progress.  It  went  into  decay  at  length,  los- 
ing itself  in  the  nonsence  of  the  mysticism  of  Neo-Pla- 
tonism.  And  why  .'^  Because  of  the  one-sidedness  of  the 
Grecian  philosophers.  After  Socrates  there  rose  no  one 
who  aspired  to  combine  all  the  antagonistic  principles 
and  give  each  of  them  its  due.  There  was  no  one  bold 
enough  to  lead  the  inaiotic  {fxaiGoriKoz)  method  of  Socra- 
tes to  a  monism  in  which  the  controversies  of  the  past 
could  acquiesce. 

Let  us  learn  from  old  Greece,  What  we  need  in  our 
days  is  neither  Radicalism  nor  the  philosophy  of  creed 
and  faith,  but  both  united.  The  mere  radicalism  which 
leaves   the    heart    empty,    will    breed    superstition    as    a 


14  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

substitute  for  the  loss  of  religion  ;  and  the  philosophy  of 
creed  and  faith,  demanding  (as  Prof.  Stahl  really  did) 
that  science  should  return  to  belief,  leads  to  bigotry.  And 
does  not  the  spiritualism  of  our  days  remind  us  very  much 
of  the  Neo-Platonism  of  ancient  history  }  So  one-sided- 
ness  tends  to  the  same  end.  At  length  it  will  make 
philosophy  a  scientificated  superstition.  So  the  need  of 
our  time  is  not  to  declare  in  favor  of  either  of  the  opposed 
principles  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  flatly  deny  the 
right  of  the  contrary.  No  !  We  must  investigate  both 
carefully,  in  hope  that  from  a  higher  view  they  may  be 
reconcilable  and  conformable. 

Granted  that  Kant  failed,  as  I  think  he  did,  in  com- 
bining both  standpoints  into  a  higher  unity,  yet  he 
showed  in  what  direction  the  philosophic  development 
tended.  Therefore  it  is  not  the  results  of  his  philosophy 
that  make  him  great  and  give  importance  to  his  ideas,  but 
his  method.  Philosophers,  however,  like  Auguste  Comte, 
John  Stuart  Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer,  who  imagined  that 
they  could  easily  dispense  with  Kant,  are  entirely  mis- 
taken. Though  Comte  and  his  adherents  condemn 
Kant  simply  as  a  metaphysical  philosopher,  and  propose 
what  they  call  Positivism,  a  philosophy  of  utmost  radical- 
ism, as  they  thought,  it  is  clear  that  they  lack  critique 
and  method.  They  overlooked  the  difficulty,  as  they  did 
not  fathom  the  depth  of  Kant  ;  and,  where  Kant  inquired 
carefully,  weighing  the  pros  and  cons,  they  jumped  at  their 
conclusion.  They  endeavored  to  outdo  each  other  in 
radicalism  and  had  no  idea,  that  their  own  radicalism 
was  child's  play  compared  with  the  radical  thoroughness 
of  Kantian  Critique,  in  spite  of  all  the  conservatism  which 
Kant  exhibited  at  the  same  time. 

Kant  is  a  giant  among  his  fellow  philosophers,  not 
merely  because  he  startled  the  world  with  a  new  theory 
of  space  and  time,  not  merely  because  his  system  is  the 


KANT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  1 5 

greatest  puzzle  to  the  world  even  to-day,  and  certainly 
not  because  he  has  given  ascendency  to  the  radical  phi- 
losophy in  the  face  of  the  dogmatic  doctrines  which  were 
very  powerful  in  Germany  in  his  days.     Kant  was  not  the 
hero  of  one  faction  ;  he  stood  above  parties  and  showed 
his  greatness  by  embracing  them  all.    His  critical  method 
is  actually  a  principle  of  justice.     The  sceptic  may  have 
his  say,  but  afterwards  the  dogmatist    may  be    allowed 
to  make  the  best  of  what  is  left  and   to  construct   his 
dogmas  on   the  ruins  of  scepticism.     In  the  Critique  of 
pure  reason,  Kant  is  radical  ;  he  shows  that  time    and  / 
space   are    no    realities,    that    in  consequence    of    that, 
the  world  as  it  exists  in  time  and  space  is  a  mere  phe- 
nomenon, and  that  soul  as  well  as  God  are  nothing  but 
noumena — mere  concepts.     We  fancy  that  we  perceive  in 
the  world   certain    purposes    proving   the    premeditative 
wisdom  of  a  creator,  but  such  a  teleology  or  doctrine  of 
purposes  is  an  imagination  and  simply  a  paralogism  of 
pure   reason  ;   for   it   is   only   according   to    the   law   of 
causality  that  the  affairs  of  the  world  are  regulated.     Be- 
fore Kant,  no  one  was  so  radical  and  thorough,  and  yet 
this  very  same  man  propounds  in  his  Critique  of  Practical 
Reason  the  three  postulates,  God,  Freedom  and  Immor- 
tality, contradicting   the  results  of  his    Critique  of  Pure 
Reason. 

So  Kant's  philosophy  appears  to  consist  of  two  souls, 
the  one  sceptical  and  radical,  the  other  dogmatic  and 
believing.  The  greatest  German  poet  of  the  same  period, 
Wolfgang  Goethe,  in  his  philosophic  poetry,  makes  Faust 
say  to  Wagner,  who  represents  the  philistine  pedantry, 
and  who,  like  all  average  men,  has  only  one  soul  : 

"  One  impulse  art  thou  conscious  of  at  best, 
O  never  seek  to  know  the  other, 
Two  souls,  alas  !  reside  within  my  breast. 
And  each  withdraws  from  and  repels  its  brother." 


1 6  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

Kant  with  his  private  character  has  not  in  the  least 
impeached  Goethe's  idea  of  Faust.  The  more  noteworthy- 
it  is  that  in  describing  a  philosopher,  the  poet  could  not 
help  imputing  to  him  a  dualism  similar  to  that  of  Kant. 
Goethe  had  the  same  two  souls  within  himself;  and  so 
has  every  great  impartial  man  whose  horizon  reaches 
farther  than  that  of  the  smaller  creatures  around  and  be- 
neath him, 

§  3.      WHICH   IS   THE   REAL   KANT  ? 

Yet  concerning  this  dualism  in  the  Kantian  philos- 
ophy, it  is  not  astonishing  that  people  were  puzzled 
and  asked,  which  is  now  the  real  Kant.  Naturally,  the 
Kantians  are  divided  into  two  principal  camps,  the  radi- 
cals and  the  dogmatists.  Both  of  them  stand  upon  Kant. 
But  the  radicals  (for  instance  Schopenhauer)  say,  that 
the  real  Kant  is  the  critical  philosopher,  who  was,  as  they 
pretend,  so  weak  that  he  was  afraid  of  losing  his  professor- 
ship, and,  therefore,  stooped  to  hypocrisy.  The  orthodox 
party,  however,  to  which  belong  the  elite  of  Germany's 
philosophically  trained  clergymen,  think  that  the  Kant  of 
the  Practical  Reason  is  the  true  Kant.  The  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason  is  merely  written,  they  say,  to  show  where 
human  philosophy  arrives,  if  left  to  drift  in  its  isolation, 
without  divine  illumination.  Therefore,  they  infer,  God 
had  to  reveal  himself,  and  so  practical  reason  teaches  us 
that  we  have  simply  to  accept  the  fundamental  facts  of 
such  a  revelation  as  Christianity  affords,  namely,  the  ideas 
of  God,  Freedom  (which  means  moral  responsibility)  and 
Itnmortality. 

In  answer  to  Schopenhauer  and  his  adherents  we  must 
indeed  concede  that,  when  Kant  was  rebuked  by  the 
government,  he  yielded  to  the  pressure  and  promised 
obedience.     But  this  does  not  explain  his  dualism,  as  it 


KANTS  PHILOSOPHY.  1 7 

was  prior  to  these  persecutions  ;  for  he  had  nothing  to 
fear  under  the  rule  of  the  liberal  Frederick  the  Great. 
And  when  this  reproof  was  made,  Kant  had  already 
written  all  the  essential  books  of  his  philosophy,  and 
there  is  no  reason  for  such  a  suspicion  as  that  of  Schopen- 
hauer.* 

The  view  taken  by  erudite  theologians  has  scarcely 
ever  been  recognized  among  philosophers,  as  it  savored 
too  strongly  of  theology.  Nevertheless,  if  it  be  allowed 
to  philosophers  to  eliminate  the  practical  side  for  the  sake 
of  harmony,  why  should  not  theologians  be  permitted  to 
reject  the  theoretical  part  for  the  same  reason  }  The  men 
that  do  so,  consider  Kant  as  an  agnostic.  If  nothing 
can  be  said  definitely  against  the  other  world  and 
another  life,  especially  if  nothing  can  be  said  in  favor 
of,  nor  anything  against,  the  existence  of  God,  is  it  then 
not  best,  they  say,  simply  to  accept  revelation  as  a 
satisfactory  solution  of  the  problem  of  life  .-*  Well,  they 
may  do  so,  and  if  they  feel  satisfied  with  their  philosophy 
of  faith  and  creed,  they  can  entirely  dispense  with  the 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason.  Of  what  use  is  it,  if  the  pre- 
destined end  is  no  science,  but  belief.'*  ! 

Kant,  to  be  sure,  though  he  is  not  of  the  first  named 
type,  as  the  radicals  interpret  his  philosophy,  does  not, 

*  Max  Miiller,  in  regard  to  the  discord  about  the  first  and  second 
edition  of  the  Critique  refutes  these  unjust  intimations  and  accusa- 
tions of  Schopenhauer.  He  says  :  "The  active  reactionary  measures 
by  which  Kant  is  supposed  to  have  been  frightened,  date  from  a  later 
period.  Zedlitz,  Kant's  friend  and  protector,  was  not  replaced  by 
Wollner  as  minister  till  1788.  It  was  not  till  1794  that  Kant  was 
really  warned  and  reprimanded  by  the  cabinet ;  and  we  must  not 
judge  too  harshly  of  the  old  philosopher,  when  at  his  time  of  life 
and  in  the  state  of  paternal  despotism  in  Prussia,  he  wrote  back  to 
say,  that  he  would  do  even  more  than  was  demanded  of  him  and 
abstain  in  future  from  all  public  lectures  concerning  religion,  whether 
natural  or  revealed." 


1 8  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

on  the  other  hand,  answer  to  the  ideal  of  the  second  fac- 
tion. His  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  sweeping  and  thorough- 
going as  it  is,  was  at  least  as  sincere  as  that  of  the  Prac- 
tical Reason,  which  is  constructive  and  conservative. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  either  both  of  these  two  parties 
are  to  be  acknowledged  as  right  and  legitimate,  or  neither; 
and  I  think  sufficient  proof  can  be  brought  from  some 
passages  of  Kant  to  convince  any  one  that  the  real  Kant 
is  truly  dualistic. 

Before  we  proceed  to  this,  let  me  briefly  mention  that 
I  shall  merely  sketch  in  a  popular  way  the  views  of  these 
two  parties,  knowing  very  well  that  there  are  shades,  by 
which  many  of  the  same  group  characterize  themselves. 
However,  I  do  not  intend,  here,  to  distinguish  but  to 
classify,  and  there  is  only  time  to  rough-hew  their  opinions 
and  draw  the  picture  in  broad  general  outlines. 

Besides  these  two  classes,  who  stand  either  on  the  crit- 
ical or  the  dogmatic  Kant,  there  are  some  other  Kant- 
ians  who  may  be  named  the  elective  pa?ty.  The  men  be- 
longing to  it  choose  indiscriminately  from  Kant's  ideas, 
just  as  they  think  fit.  They  are  either  dilettanti,  or,  if 
philosophers  by  profession,  marked  by  a  lack  of  consis- 
tency. No  doubt  we  find  prominent  men  among  them. 
As  an  instance  of  this  latter  class  may  be  named  Pro- 
fessor Felix  Adler  of  New  York,  a  prominent  man,  of 
powerful  oratory,  and  of  sincerest  aspirations,  whose  prin- 
cipal merit  is  undeniably  the  number  of  practical  and  use- 
ful institutions  which  he  has  created.  His  watch-word 
Deed  not  creed  !  is  the  true  guiding  star  of  his  work.  He 
is  devoted  to  Kantian  philosophy  and  professes  to  preach 
a  religion  of  Pure  Reason.  He  accepts  from  the  Critique 
of  Practical  Reason  the  idea  of  freedom,  the  Categoric 
imperative  being  the  basis  of  his  ethics.  In  answer  to 
some  address  on  the  subject  of  the  poetry  of  the  future, 
delivered   before   the  Nineteenth  Century  Club  in  New 


KANT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  IQ 

York,  he  defended  the  right  of  fiction  and  fictitious  poet- 
ical personages  such  as  fairies,  gnomes  and  elves,  to  exist 
in  the  phantasy  of  our  children,  because,  he  said,  poetry 
is  based  on  the  wants  of  our  heart,  and  our  heart  will 
remain  the  same  as  it  has  ever  been  in  spite  of  all  scien- 
tific progress.  Yet  the  idea  of  God  he  has  banished  from 
the  nursery,  as  though  God  were  no  exigency  of  our  heart 
— not  even  so  much  as  any  sprite  or  genius  in  the  tales 
of  the  "  Thousand  and  one  Nights." 

The  first  and  second  class  of  the  Kantians  perceived 
the  dualism  and  got  rid  of  it  by  elimination  of  either 
l^i  principi/,  the  critical  or  the  dogmatic.  The  elective 
/  Kantians,  however,  overlook  entirely  the  import  of 
Kant's  dualism  ;  and  while  I  understand  the  first  and 
second  classes,  I  am  quite  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the 
inconsistency  of  the  third  class. 

§4.      KANT   IS   REALLY   DUALISTIC. 

According  to  my  view,  Kant  was  neither  a  hypocrite 
nor  a  coward,  as  Schopenhauer,  our  representative  of  the 
radical  class,  says  ;  nor  is  his  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  a 
mere  sham-fight,  as  the  philosophers  of  faith  and  creed 
thought.  I  believe  that  Kant  was  sincere  as  well  in  his 
radicalism  as  in  his  dogmatism.  He  was  too  thorough 
not  to  think  his  critical  ideas  to  the  end,  and  there  he 
arrived  at  the  abyss  of  atheism.  However,  the  same 
Kant  was  too  profound  to  stop  here.  His  atheism  was 
no  blasphemy  ;  and  he  was  too  good  a  critic — that  is, 
he  was  too  just — not  to  allow  his  opponent  to  have  his 
say  also.  Pure  reason  is  but  half  the  soul  of  man.  The 
other  half,  being  the  em^otional  part,  has  exactly  the 
same  right.  And  the  God  that  lives  in  our  hearts  has  not 
been  touched  and  can  not  be  touched  by  the  critique  of 
any  pure  reason.     God,   the   phantom  of  religious  fairy 


20  JIOAVSM  AND  MELIORISM. 

tales,  that  personified  ideal  of  the  highest  and  best  in 
man,  that  glorious  idol,  vanished  before  the  light  of  scien- 
tific investigation  like  night-fog  before  the  beams  of  the 
rising  sun.  It  vanished  and  it  must  vanish  as  do  the  fairy- 
tales in  the  child's  brain. 

I  know  of  a  man  who,  when  a  boy,  wept  bitterly,  as  he 
grew  more  and  more  convinced  that  the  fairy  tales  and 
the  beautiful  legends,  myths  and  stories  of  old  Greece,  of 
Hercules,  Theseus,  and  also  of  the  dragon-killer  Siegfried, 
were  not  true.  So  it  is  natural  that  we  mourn  to  see  the 
most  beautiful  fairy  tale  of  the  world  broken  down.  But 
there  is  some  comfort.  Fairy  tales  contain  in  the  veil  of 
fiction  some  ideal  truth.  So  they  are,  though  not  real, 
yet  true.  And  so  Deity  itself  does  not  break  down  :  it  is 
merely  our  faculty,  our  capacity  for  comprehending  the 
Deity,  that  fails.  Not  Mitra  is  God,  the  personification  of 
the  sun  according  to  Persian  religion,  not  Zeus,  the 
Olympian  of  the  Greeks.  He  merely  symbolizes  the  sky, 
a  humanized  being  of  what  was  supposed  to  be  the  high- 
est and  best  in  nature.  Moses  taught  Monotheism,  but 
his  Jehovah  was  only  a  name  of  the  real  God  he 
preached.  Allah  il  Allah  !  cried  Mohammed,  but  his 
Allah  was  too  much  like  himself  to  resemble  the  eternal 
Deity  of  the  Universe.  He  was  the  ideal  of  the  Arabic 
tribes,  and  they  were  unable  to  grasp  any  higher  thing. 
Christ  came,  and  the  human  race  learned  to  call  God 
their  Father.  Alas  !  again  it  is  only  a  name,  an  allegory. 
It  is  expressive,  however,  and  who  denies  the  beauty  and 
inmost  truth  of  it  .■*  But  there  are  always  men  who  are 
not  satisfied  with  what  they  possess  of  truth.  They 
desire  to  penetrate  farther  into  its  depths,  and  some  such 
theosophers  perceived  clearly  that  God  is  not  a  person. 
He  encompasses  all  that  is  highest  and  best,  he  is  all  in 
all,  he  is  the  soul  of  the  Universe.  Such  men  wereTauler 
and  Jacob  Bohme.      Then    the  philosopher   steps   forth 


KANT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  21 

and  shows  the  weakness  of  this  ontology,  Kant  proves 
that  this  God  is  merely  a  noumenon,  an  empty  concept. 
And  therewith  we  are  at  an  end  with  the  development  of 
the  God  idea.  On  the  one  hand,  there  is  some  truth  in 
the  idolatry  of  the  heathens,  in  the  fire  worship  of  Zoro- 
aster, in  the  creed  of  the  Mohammedans.  But  on  the 
other,  there  is  some  error  also  in  the  highest  Christian 
theosophy,  and  the  philosopher  must  not  imagine  that 
his  carefully  distilled  ontology  is  really  the  quintessence 
of  Deity.  We  can  but  say  what  God  is  not  like  ;  so 
unsearchable  is  He  that  the  veriest  atheism*  appears  to 
come  nearest  the  truth. 

*  Kant's  atheism  is  not  at  all  as  shallow  as  that  of  vulgar  blasphe- 
mers or  common  freethinkers.  His  is  that  atheism  of  which  Max 
Miiller  speaks  in  his  distinction  of  the  honest  and  the  vulgar  atheism, 
where  he  says  :  "  There  is  an  atheism  which  is  unto  death  —  there 
is  another  atheism  which  is  the  very  life-blood  of  all  true  faith.  It  is 
the  power  of  giving  up  what  in  our  best,  our  most  honest,  movements 
we  know  no  longer  to  be  true.  It  is  the  readiness  to  replace  the  less 
perfect,  however  dear,  however  sacred  it  may  have  been  to  us,  by  the 
more  perfect,  however  much  it  may  be  detested  as  yet  by  the  world. 
It  is  the  true  self-surrender,  the  true  self-sacrifice,  the  truest  trust  in 
truth,  the  truest  faith.  Without  that  atheism,  religion  would  long 
ago  have  become  a  petrified  hypocrisy.  Without  that  atheism,  no 
new  religion,  no  reform,  no  reformation,  no  resuscitation  would  have 
ever  been  possible  ;  without  that  atheism  no  new  life  is  possible  for 
any  one  of  us.  In  the  eyes  of  the  Brahmins  Buddha  was  an  atheist. 
...  In  the  eyes  of  the  Athenian  judges  Socrates  was  an  atheist. . . . 
In  the  eyes  of  the  Jews  whosoever  called  himself  the  son  of  God  was 
a  blasphemer,  and  whosoever  worshipped  the  God  of  his  father  after 
that  new  way  was  a  heretic.  The  very  name  of  the  Christians  among 
Greek  and  Romans  was  atheists  {a^eoi). 

"  Nor  did  the  abuse  of  language  cease  altogether  among  the  Chri- 
stians themselves.  In  the  eyes  of  Athanasius,  the  Arians  were  devils, 
anthichrists,  maniacs,  Jews,  polytheists,  atheists.  And  we  need  not 
wonder  if  Arius  did  not  take  a  much  more  charitable  view  of  the 
Athanasians.  Yet  both  Athanasius  and  Arius  were  only  striving  to 
realize  the  highest  ideal  of  Deity,  each  in  his  own  way  ;  Arius  fear- 


22  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Kant  was  scientifically  a  real 
atheist  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  establishes  simply  on 
the  basis  of  our  emotional  wants  the  idea  of  God.  Is  it 
the  same  dogmatic  God  ?  Kant  does  not  tell.  And  it 
is  even  astonishing,  how  little  trouble, — in  fact,  none  at 
all — he  takes  to  justify  this  God  before  the  tribunal  of 
pure  reason.  Kant  leaves  it  to  us  to  find  out  how  the 
radical  atheism,  and  this  practical — let  us  rather  say 
emotional —  theism  can  be  combined  into  a  unity.  How 
is  it  possible  that  yes  and  no  are  consistent  and  com- 
patible with  each  other,  and  how  can  sweet  and  bitter 
come  from  the  same  mouth  .''  No  !  neither  he  who  selects 
either  of  these  Kantian  souls,  nor  he  who  takes  indis- 
criminately what  he  pleases,  is  a  true  successor  and  fol- 
lower of  Kant,  but  rather  he  who  is  able  to  reconcile  the 

ing  that  Gentile,  Athanasius  that  Jewish  errors  might  detract  from 
its  truth  and  majesty.  Nay,  even  in  later  times  the  same  thoughtless- 
ness of  expression  has  continued  in  the  theological  warface ...  In 
the  XVIth  century  Servetus  called  Calvin  a  trinitarian  and  atheist, 
while  Calvin  considered  Servetus  worthy  of  the  stake  (1553)  because 
his  view  of  Deity  differed  from  his  own." 

Max  Miiller  when  delivering  this  lecture,  knew  his  audience, 
mixed  as  it  was,  too  well,  not  to  see  the  danger  to  which  he  exposed 
himself.  So  he  added  :  "  Now  I  know  perfectly  well,  that  what  I 
have  said  just  now  will  be  misunderstood,  will  possibly  be  misinter- 
preted. I  know  I  shall  be  accused  of  having  defended  and  glorified 
atheism  and  of  having  represented  it  as  the  last,  the  highest  point, 
which  man  can  reach  in  an  evolution  of  religious  thought.  Let  it 
be  so  !  If  there  are  but  a  few  here  present  who  understand  what  I 
mean  by  honest  atheism,  and  who  know,  how  it  differs  from  vulgar 
atheism,  ay,  from  dishonest  theism,  I  shall  feel  satified  ;  for  I  know 
that  to  understand  that  distinction  will  often  help  us  in  the  hour  of 
our  sorest  need.  It  will  teach  us,  that  while  the  old  leaves 
of  the  bright  and  happy  spring  are  falling  and  all  seems  wintry, 
there  must  be  a  new  spring  in  store  for  every  warm  and  honest 
heart.  It  will  teach  us  that  honest  doubt  is  the  deepest  spring  of 
honest  faith,  and  that  he  only  who  has  lost  can  find." 


KANT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  23 

contradiction  of  his  philosophy.  Kant's  unmistakable 
dualism,  however,  is  not  due  to  a  want  of  consistency, 
but  to  the  fact  that  he  is  standing  on  the  tribunal  of 
justice  and,  being  unable  to  decide,  allows  each  party  to 
say  its  mind. 

God  may  be  likened  to  the  sea  in  its  vastness  and 
grandeur.  The  diver  strikes  down  into  its  depth  and  the 
sailor  swims  on  its  surface.  The  one  finds  precious  pearls 
and  corals  in  its  abysses  ;  the  other  encompasses  a  cog- 
nizance of  its  extension,  but  declares  it  to  be  a  stormy  and 
sterile  water-desert,  wherein  no  precious  things  are  to  be 
found.  The  sailor  is  our  pure  reason  and  the  diver  our 
emotion.  If  the  philosopher  is  not  able  to  combine  both, 
he  will  be  either  a  shallow  rationalist,  keeping  constantly 
on  the  surface,  thus  gathering  his  cognition  superficially, 
or  a  thoughtless  zealot,  a  prejudiced  and  one-sided  bigot. 

§  5.      TRUTH   MEANS   HARMONY   OF   VERITY   WITH 
VERACITY. 

Kant's  philosophy  is  rigidly  bold,  and  weak  souls  may 
consider  it  dangerous  to  have  his  doctrines  taught  at  our 
universities.  But  truth  is  never  dangerous  and  the  earnest 
love  of  truth  will  never  be  detrimental.  Truth  is  by  no 
means  the  possession  of  some  verity,  acquired  in  some 
way  or  another,  no  matter  how.  Truth  is  the  quality  of 
being  true.  So  it  is  the  harmony  of  our  subjective  aspira- 
tion or  love  of  truth, — of  our  veracity  with  the  objective 
verity  of  the  matter  inquired  into.  Truth  can  not  be 
stolen  ;  and  if  it  be  taken  by  stealth,  it  is  no  longer  real 
truth.  It  is  some  sad  verity,  which  proves  fatal  to  our 
intellectual  and  emotional  life. 

Very  instructive  is  Schiller's  pensive  ballad  of  the  veiled 
statue  of  Isis,  in  which  the  poet  describes  a  youth  who, 
aspiring  to  truth,  enters  one  of  the  hierarchical  schools  at 


24  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

Sais.  His  ambition  drives  him  from  reach  to  reach  as  he 
presses  upward  from  degree  to  degree,  but  he  finds  no 
satisfaction,  for  what  is  truth  if  communicated  in  single 
parts  ?  Or  could  it  be  possible  to  be  in  possession  of  a 
fraction  of  truth? — While  he  is  arguing  on  such  subjects 
with  his  instructor,  the  hierophant — the  ardent  eye  of  the 
youth  espies  a  shrouded  statue  standing  in  the  temple. 
"  What  does  this  veil  conceal  ?  "  he  asks.  "  Truth  itself," 
is  the  answer,  "And  you  have  never  lifted  it.'"'  he  con- 
tinues. "Never,"  the  priest  rejoins,  "nor  have  lever 
been  tempted  to  do  so  ;  for  the  veil  may  be  light,  but 
heavy  is  the  divine  law  which  forbids  the  uncovering." 
"And  yet  the  oracle  says  :  he  who  lifts  the  veil,  shall  see 
truth." 

After  this  discussion  the  youth  went  out  secretly  in  the 
hush  of  night.  He  entered  the  temple  where  the  tall  wan 
figure  stood,  on  which  through  the  skylight  window,  the 
moon  poured  down  her  silvery  pallid  light.  Reluctantly 
he  touched  the  veil,  still  hesitating  to  lift  it.  Yet  his 
desire  to  see  truth  was  too  ardent.  He  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  and  lifted  the  veil.  Well— and  what  did 
he  see  .''  So  we  ask,  and  many  asked  the  same  question 
of  him.  But  he  never  told  what  he  had  seen.  A  sad 
melancholy  led  him  to  premature  death,  and  wherever 
he  was  requested  to  tell  his  secret,  he  replied  :  "Woe  to 
them,  who  arrive  at  truth  by  the  path  of  guilt.  It  will 
never  be  a  comfort  to  them." 

A  man  who  acquires  a  grave  and  important  truth  not 
by  hard  study  but  by  frivolous  license  will  either  be 
pressed  down  by  the  burden  of  such  forbidden  knowledge, 
— a  knowledge  for  which  he  was  not  matured,  which  he 
could  not  endure,  like  that  youth  in  Schiller's  ballad — or, 
what  is  worse,  he  will  make  light  of  it,  and  become  a 
blasphemer.  And  the  reason  of  this  is,  he  really  does 
not  own  truth — for  truth  can  only  be  owned  if  deservedly 


KANT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  2$ 

earned.  He  has  caught  a  glimpse  of  it,  a  one-sided  look  ; 
and  that  being  incomplete  proves  to  be  fatal.  The  other 
side  containing  the  antidote  for  the  poison  of  the  first  is 
hidden  from  his  profane  eyes. 

How  many  of  our  clergymen  are  like  the  hierophant, 
who,  bowing  in  silent  reverence,  was  never  tempted  to 
penetrate  into  the  depth  of  truth  in  order  to  unveil  it .-' 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  how  few  philosophers  toil  on, 
thinking  and  striving  to  get  hold  of  truth  from  all  sides, 
like  Kant,  who  rather  acquiesced  in  dualism  than  jumped 
at  hasty  conclusions  } 

§  6.      KANT'S   ANTINOMIES. 

The  sincerity  of  Kant's  dualism   is  best  proved  by  his 
antinomies  or  contradictions  of  pure  reason.     He  says  : 
(according  to  Max  Muller's  translation,  p.  352)  ".. .  when 
we  apply  reason  to  the  objective  synthesis  of  phenomena, 
. .  .reason  tries  at  first  with  great  plausibility  to  establish 
its  principles  of  unconditioned  unity,  but   becomes  soon 
entangled  in  so  many  contradictions,  that  it  must  give  up 
its  pretensions. . .     For  here  we  are  met   by  a  new  phe- 
nomenon in  human  reason,  namely,  a  perfectly  natural 
antithetic,  which  is  not  produced  by  any  artificial  efforts, 
but  into  which  reason  falls  by  itself  and  inevitably.   Reason 
is,  no  doubt,  preserved  thereby  from   the  slumber  of  an 
imaginary  conviction,  which  is  often  produced  by  a  purely 
one-sided  illusion ;  but  it  is  tempted  at  the  same  time,  either 
to   abandon   itself  to    sceptical  despair,  or  to   assume  a 
dogmatical   obstinacy,  taking   its   stand   on   certain   as- 
sertions, without  granting  a   hearing,  and  doing  justice 
to   the   arguments  of  the   opponents.     In  both  cases   a 
death-blow  is  dealt    to   sound   philosophy,  although   in 
the   former   we  might  speak  of  the  euthanasia  of  pure 
reason." 


26  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

And  further,  Kant  says  (p.  364),  "  a  dialectic  proposition 
of  pure  reason  must  have  these  characteristics  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  purely  sophistical  propositions,  that  it 
does  not  refer  to  a  gratuitous  question,  but  to  one  which 
human  reason  in  its  natural  progress  must  necessarily 
encounter,"  etc. 

"  As  impartial  judges,  we  must  take  no  account  of 
whether  it  be  the  good  or  the  bad  cause  which  the  two 
champions  defend." 

And  the  antinomies  are  as  follows  : 

I.  Thesis.  The  world  has  a  beginning  in  time  and  is 
limited  also  with  regard  to  space. 

1.  Antithesis.  The  world  has  no  beginning  and  no 
limits  in  space,  but  is  infinite  in  respect  both  to  time  and 
space. 

(It  is  the  problem  of  creation  as  to  whether  there  is  a 
first  cause  or  no.) 

2.  Thesis.  Every  compound  substance  in  the  world 
consists  of  simple  parts,  and  nothing  exists  anywhere  but 
the  simple  or  what  it  is  composed  of. 

2.  Antithesis.  No  compound  thing  in  the  world  con- 
sists of  simple  parts,  and  there  exists  nowhere  in  the 
world  anything  simple. 

(This  antinomy  is  quaintly  expressed.  To  go  at  once 
to  the  bottom  of  what  Kant  proposes,  the  thesis  declares 
the  soul  to  be  immortal,  and  the  antithesis  says  human 
soul  is  a  composition  and  therefore  not  immortal.) 

3.  Thesis.  Causality,  according  to  the  laws  of  nature, 
is  not  the  only  causality  from  which  all  the  phenomena  of 
the  world  can  be  deduced.  In  order  to  account  for  these 
phenomena  it  is  necessary  also  to  admit  another  caus- 
ality, that  of  freedom. 

3.  AntitJiesis.  There  is  no  freedom  ;  but  everything  in 
the  world  takes  place  entirely  according  to  the  laws  of 
nature. 


KANT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  2/ 

4.  Thesis.  There  exists  an  absolutely  necessary  Be- 
ing belonging  to  the  world,  either  as  a  part  or  as  the 
cause  of  it. 

4.  Antithesis.  There  nowhere  exists  an  absolutely 
necessary  Being  within  or  without  the  world  as  the 
cause  of  it. 

§  7.      CONCLUSION. 

As  the  discussion  is  limited  strictly  to  Kant's  dualism, 
which  has  been  explained  and  proved,  at  least  in  its  out- 
lines, let  us  hasten  to  our  conclusion.  Kant,  in  spite  of 
his  atheism,  felt  that  the  idea  of  God  contains  a  truth 
which  no  radicalism  can  blot  out.  And  although  he 
recognized  that  there  is  but  one  law  ruling  the  affairs 
of  this  world,  viz.,  causality,  implying  necessity  to  every- 
thing, without  exception,  yet  he  was  conscious  of  that 
freedom  of  zvill,  which  is  the  inmost  spring  of  all  our 
actions.  The  old  orthodox  and  dogmatic  views,  which 
in  some  respect  received  their  death-blow  from  the 
hands  of  Kant,  were  not  simply  nonsensical  ideas,  which 
we  must  get  rid  of  as  soon  as  possible.  There  is 
wheat  among  the  tares,  and  so  we  must  be  careful  in 
eliminating,  lest  both  be  destroyed,  the  good  as  well 
as  the  evil.  Let  us  rather  sift  the  radical  as  well  as 
the  dogmatical  ideas,  and  put  their  arguments  to  a  severe 
test.  Only  in  this  way  will  the  discord  of  that  dualism 
be  dissolved  into  the  harmony  and  unison  of  a  monism, 
which  may  be  the  basis  for  a  further  development  of  the 
human  mind  with  regard  to  religious  as  well  as  philo- 
sophical ideas. 

The  following  articles  try  to  realize  this  ideal,  and 
will  prove,  let  us  hope,  that  there  is  more  unity  in  the 
general  plan  of  human  reason  than  Kant  supposed.  Our 
monism  results  in  a  contemplation  of  the  world  by 
which  so  many  seemingly  contradictory  truths  are  recon- 


28  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

ciled  with  each  other  :  the  ideal  on  the  one  side,  with 
the  real  on  the  other,  logical  deduction  with  empirical 
induction,  religious  faith  with  philosophic  and  scientific 
inquiry,  the  inflexible  causality  with  a  higher  teleology, 
and  the  rigid  law  of  necessity  with  freedom  of  will  and 
morality. 


CAUSALITY. 


§  I.      HUME'S  PROBLEM. 

THE  hero  of  the  struggle  concerning  the  question  of 
causality  is  David  Hume.  He  is  the  hero,  but  not  the 
conqueror,  of  that  problem.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  de- 
feated and  laid  down  his  arms,  unable  to  carry  on  the 
strife.  His  merit,  however,  remains,  for  he  was  the  first 
to  boldly  attack  the  huge  array  of  philosophic  problems 
in  the  very  centre  at  headquarters  ;  and  he  carried  the 
brunt  of  the  battle  to  that  point  where  alone  the  de- 
cision can  be  expected. 

Causality  is  the  keystone  of  all  philosophic  difficulty, 
and  all  other  problems  depend  upon  the  solution  of  this 
query.  God  is  called  the  first  cause,  creation  is  a  pro- 
blem of  causation,  the  basis  of  science  is  the  law  of 
cause  and  effect,  and  cognition  is  tracing  an  effect  back  to 
the  causes  which  are  supposed  to  have  produced  it. 
There  is  no  problem  in  the  empire  of  the  human  mind, 
which  is  not  more  or  less  connected  with  causality. 

In  former  centuries  causality  was  considered  an  aeterna 
Veritas,  an  eternal  truth,  which  needed  not  to  be  proved. 
David  Hume  was  the  first  to  enquire  into  this  law  and 
to  demand  its  legitimation.  However,  as  he  could  not 
find  any  other  argument  than  that  found  in  experience, 
as  there  was  no  other  test  than  its  constant  repetition  in 
nature,  he  considered  that  it  was  not  susceptible  of  proof 
and  turned  sceptic. 

Now  this  acute  Scotch  critic,  though  he  wrote  in 
language  not  at  all  obscure,  as  philosophers  are  too 
often  prone  to  do,  but  in   plain  strong   English,   which 


30  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

can  be  understood  by  almost  any  one,  was  unfortunate 
enough  to  be  at  first  neglected  and  afterwards  to  be 
misunderstood  by  his  contemporaries.  His  first  and 
most  valuable  essay,  published  in  1738,  remained  un- 
noticed and  unheeded,  and  not  till  he  had  drawn  the  at- 
tention of  his  countrymen  to  himself  by  some  essays  on 
history,  political  economy,  etc.,  did  he  venture  to  lay 
before  the  public  anew  his  neglected  philosophy  in  a 
weakened  and  crippled  edition.  Now,  at  least,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  rousing  the  opposition  of  his  contemporaries. 
None,  however,  understood  what  Hume  intended  to 
propose,  and  what  was  really  the  end  he  aimed  at.  Being 
an  adherent  of  Locke,  he  rejected  innate  ideas,  and  in 
consequence  he  said  that  all  ideas  are  produced  by  the 
impressions  of  objects,  outside  of  ourselves,  or,  in  other 
words,  merely  by  experience.  Consistently  with  this 
doctrine,  he  considered  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  to 
be  empirical.  This  would  exclude  its  absolute  currency 
and  render  it  of  mere  transitory  value,  just  effective  and 
valid  for  this  or  that  single  case  ;  but  we  are  not  at 
all  assured  that  it  will  be  binding  in  other  cases. 
It  is  a  bold  assumption  to  take  it  for  granted  and  rely 
upon  it  as  on  an  eternal  truth,  for  it  can  not  be  proved 
by  argument. 

Hume  says  on  this  subject :  "  Yet  so  imperfect  are  the 
ideas  concerning  it  {inz.  causality)  that  it  is  impossible  to 
give  any  just  definition  of  cause,  except  what  is  drawn 
from  something  extraneous  and  foreign  to  it.  Similar 
objects  are  always  conjoined  with  similar.  Of  this  we 
have  experience.  Suitably  to  the  experience,  therefore, 
we  may  define  a  cause  to  be  an  object  followed  by  an 
other,  and  where  all  the  objects  similar  to  the  first  are 
followed  by  objects  similar  to  the  second.  Or  in  other 
words,  where,  if  the  first  had  not  been,  the  second  never 
had  existed."     I  can  not  dwell  long  here  on  the  many 


CAUSALITY.  31 

mistakes  Hume  commits,  but  let  me  hint  that  cause  and 
effect  are  7iot  objects,  but  two  events,  one  following  the 
other.  According  to  Hume,  every  carriage  of  a  railroad 
train  would  be  the  effect  of  the  one  going  before,  which, 
vice  versa,  would  be  the  cause  of  the  following  one  ;  for 
they  are  indisputably  similar  objects,  one  follozued  by  an- 
other. 

Hume  acknowledges  the  law  of  identity  (a  =  a),  but 
cause  and  effect  are  by  no  means  identical  ;  nay,  he  says, 
they  are  entirely  different  and  form  a  synthesis,  i.e.,  com- 
position of  two  things  ;  ergo  causality,  he  concludes,  can 
not  be  proved.  All  connections  which  we  observe,  the 
changes  of  which  we  call  cause  and  effect,  are  so  many 
single  cases,  and  it  is  perhaps  quite  incidental,  if  they  are 
equal  in  their  repetition.  There  is,  according  to  Hume, 
no  necessary  connection  in  this  world  and  if  it  really  ex- 
isted, there  is  no  reason  whatever  why  we  should  rely 
upon  it  so  long  as  we  can  not  demonstrate  it.  So  all 
science,  especially  natural  science,  resting  on  experience, 
lacks  a  solid  basis,  after  the  validity  of  causality  is  denied. 
Exactness  of  investigation  is  impossible,  because  it  is  left 
to  chance,  and  the  trustful  inquirer  into  the  secrets  of 
nature  is  baffled,  since  he  gropes  in  the  dark,  now  that 
science  has  lost  the  condition  on  which  it  stands. 

Hume's  adversaries  supposed  that  the  philosopher 
denied  the  existence  of  causality  itself  and  endeavored 
to  demonstrate  its  operation  to  him.  Their  attacks  do 
not  affect  him,  as  he  by  no  means  denied  causality  but 
merely  doubted  its  foundation.  With  this,  however,  the 
universality  of  the  law  is  lost,  and  all  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  instead  of  being  one  uninterrupted  chain  of  causes 
and  effects  are  dissolved  into  unaccountable  and  innumer- 
able particularities.*    The  universe  in,  such  a  case  is  no 

*  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill  takes  the  same  ground.  He  says  in  his 
System  of  Deductive  and  Inductive  Logic,  Book  III,  Chapter  IV,  §  i: 


32  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

longer  a  unity  but  an  agglomeration  of  single  things,  here 
and  there  connected  by  chance,  but  not  by  necessity, 
since  the  law  of  causality,  that  universal  tie  by  which  the 
cosmos  is  bound  together,  can  no  longer  be  accepted  as 
acterna  Veritas. 

The  same  punctilious  sceptic,  however,  who  refused  to 
acknowledge  the  universal  validity  of  the  highest  law  in 
nature,  distinguished  between  (icvionstratk'c  3.nd  so-called 
rational  truths,  the  latter  being  the  axioms  of  arith- 
metic and  mathematics.  Hume  accepted  them  without 
hesitation  and  did  not  in  the  least  suspect  their  certainty. 
At  no  time  did  he  stop  to  enquire  into  their  legitimacy 
and  origin.  And  to  Kant  belongs  the  merit  of  having 
pointed  out  their  relation  and  affinity  to  causality.    Thus 

"  In  the  contemplation  of  that  uniformity  in  the  course  of  nature, 
which  is  assumed  in  every  inference  from  experience,  one  of  the  first 
observations  that  present  themselves  is,  that  the  uniformity  in 
question  is  not  properly  uniformity ,  but  uniformities.  The  general 
regularity  results  from  the  co-existence  of  partial  regularities.  The 
course  of  nature  in  general  is  constant,  because  the  course  of  each 
of  the  various  phenomena  that  compose  it,  is  so." 

In  accordance  with  this,  necessity  does  not  exist  at  all,  and  Mill, 
indeed,  draws  this  conclusion.  He  says:  "When,  therefore,  it  is 
affirmed,  that  the  conclusions  of  geometry  are  necessary  truths,  the 
necessity  consists  in  reality  only  in  this,  that  they  correctly  tollow  from 
the  suppositions  from  which  they  are  deduced.  Those  suppositions 
are  so  far  from  being  necessary,  that  they  are  not  even  true  ;  they 
purposely  depart  more  or  less  widely  from  the  truth"  {they  depart 
Jrotn  experience,  however,  not  frotn  truth).  "  The  only  sense  in 
which  necessity  can  be  ascribed  to  the  conclusions  of  any  scientific 
investigation,  is  that  of  legitimately  following  from  some  assumption, 
which  by  the  conditions  of  the  inquiry  is  not  to  be  questioned." — 
True,  logical  legitimacy  is  what  ought  to  be  necessary,  and  in  most 
cases  will  certainly  prove  to  be  so.  Yet  the  two  terms  are,  by  no 
means,  identical ;  nor  could  the  idea  of  necessity  be  thus  eliminated. 
In  consistency  with  the  negation  of  necessity,  Mill  ought  to  have  de- 
clared himself  a  sceptic,  as  Hume,  in  accordance  with  the  principles 
from  which  both  started,  really  did. 


CAUSALITY.  33 

he  was  able  to  appreciate  the  importance  of  Hume's 
scepticism  and  at  the  same  time  to  lead  the  way  to  a 
solution  of  the  problem.  He  generalized  Hume's  ques- 
tion as  to  causality,  and  investigated  the  whole  ground 
of  so-called  rational  thought  and  knowledge.  He  found 
out  that  we  are  indeed  in  possession  of  some  truths  which 
are  entirely  independent  of  experience  and  are  even  the 
condition  of  experience.  Such  truths  independent  of,  and 
antecedent  to,  experience  were  called  a  priori,  and,  so  far 
as  they  are  the  conditions  of  experience,  Kant  terms 
the  same  transcendental,  (a  word  carefully  to  be  distin- 
guished from  transcendent,  the  latter  designating  a  trans- 
mundane  existence).  Transcendental  Kant  calls  the 
rational  or  a  priori  axioms  and  theorems  as  passing  over 
to  the  a  posteriori,  and  forming  fundamental  rules  for  our 
experience.  These  truths,  a  priori,  are  in  the  first 
instance  the  mathematical,  arithmetical,  and  logical 
theorems.  2x2^4  is  an  axiom  which  we  know  before 
all  experience  and  which,  we  are  sure,  is  a  universal  law, 
— a  law  necessary  under  any  condition  and  as  such  2ini- 
versal.  Necessity  and  universality  are  to  Kant  sure  indi- 
cations of  the  apriority  of  a  truth.  As  both  are  appli- 
cable to  causality,  it  is  undoubtedly  a  law  a  priori ; 
and  as  it  is  the  condition  of  all  experience  it  is  tran- 
scendental. 

§  2.      INTERNAL  AND  EXTERNAL  COGNIZANCE. 

In  doubting  causality  Hume  ought  to  have  doubted  all 
other  a  priori  truths  as  well.  Then,  any  cognizance 
would  have  been  disputable ,  any  observation  illusory, every 
judgment  fallacious  and  science  without  value.  In  such  a 
case  we  must  not  be  astonished  if  spiritists  merely  smile  at 
the  most  exact  deductions  and  conclusions  of  our  scientific 
men.     The  apriority  of  our  rational  sciences,  to  be  sure. 


34  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

is  the  condition   of  knowledge,  —  that  is,  to  speak   in 
Kant's  nomenclature,  it  is  transcendental. 

From  a  particular  sensation,  according  to  the  law  of 
causality,  which  beforehand  ox  a  priori  \\&  take  for  granted, 
we  conclude  that  it  is  the  effect  of  some  cause  outside  of 
ourselves.  And  in  this  way  causality  becomes  the  organ 
or  instrument  of  cognition.  Here  more  than  any  where 
else  the  importance  of  the  doctrine  of  apriority  is  shown. 
Mere  experience  would  be  for  ever  condemned  to  crawl 
on  the  soil  and  stick  to  single  and  particular  facts. 
Apriority,  by  affording  necessity  and  universality,  lends 
us  the  wings  of  generalization  and  makes  a  universal  law 
of  seemingly  incidental  and  fortuitous  cases. 

It  should  be  observed,  however,  as  apriority  has  been 
so  often  misinterpreted,  that  it  does  not  mean  at  all  such 
knowledge  as  is  antecedent  in  the  temporal  sense  but 
simply  prior  as  the  condition  of  empirical  or  a  posteriori 
cognizance.  Adversaries  of  Kant's  transcendental  philo- 
sophy fight  against  wind-mills  if  they  attempt  to  prove 
that  mathematical  truths  are  not  innate  ideas  which  we 
may  be  conscious  of  from  our  birth,  but  that  on  the  con- 
trary, they  must  be  acquired  with  the  same  or  even  greater 
difficulty  than  empiric  knowledge.  No  one  doubts  that, 
neither  Kant  nor  any  transcendental  philosopher.  But  a 
priori  and  a  posteriori  truths  are  different  in  regard  to 
their  origin,  the  latter  being  produced  from  experience  by 
our  sensation  ;  the  former,  however,  being  rational,  grow 
within  ourselves,  and  stand  merely  on  pure  reason.  We 
acquire  them  by  meditation  ;  and  such  truths  once  stated 
can  not  be  shaken  by  any  experience  ;  while  contrari- 
wise any  empiric  knowledge  may  be  proved  erroneous  as 
soon  as  a  new  experience  demands  new  explanations  of 
former  experiences.  2  x  2  =  4  is  true  not  only  on  this 
planet  of  ours,  but  also  on  the  farthest  star  in  the  skies. 
Empirical  knowledge  can  not  boast  of  such  universality, 


CAUSALITY.  35 

and  wherever  it  attains  it,  it  is  done   through  rational 
truths,  by  generahzation  on  ground  of  «  priori  theorems. 

The  distinction  between  these  diametrically  different 
kinds  of  knowledge  must  be  preserved.  It  must  be  con- 
fessed, however,  that  the  nomenclature,  as  used  by  Kant, 
is  not  at  all  adequate.  Instead  of  a  priori  and  a  posteriori, 
we  propose  to  use  the  terms  internal  and  external.  Inter- 
nal knowledge  is  the  rational,  growing  from  pure  reason 
within  ourselves,  and  the  instrument  of  all  empirical 
knowledge,  or  what  Kant  styles  a  priori  and  transcen- 
dental. Herbert  .Spencer  characterizes  it  as  the  "incon- 
ceivability of  the  contrary."  It  is  that  knowledge  which 
cannot  be  otherwise,  which  we  take  for  granted  before- 
hand, which  we  acquire  by  pure  meditation  without  any 
help  from  experience,  (though  experience  may  illustrate 
and  explain  it  by  examples,)  and  which  we  believe  even 
though  experience  should  seem  to  contradict  it.  Ex- 
ternal knowledge  is  drawn  from  exterior  sources  by 
means  of  sensation.  Truths  of  the  first  kind  are  by 
their  very  nature  universal  and  necessary,  those  of  the 
other  are  particular,  incidental  and  fortuitous.  Sciences 
treating  of  rational  truths  are  also  called  formal,  on 
account  of  their  subjects  being  merely  formal.  Natural 
sciences  inquire  into  substantial  things  ;  and  in  regard  to 
this  fact,  Kant  correctly  states,  that  experience  "  without 
the  help  of  apriority  is  blind,''  but  that  the  purely  a  priori 
statements  are  empty,  viz.:  mere  formal  truths.  So  they 
generalize,  systematize  and  render  clear  our  experience, 
but  are  unable  to  enlarge  it. 

Should  we  meet  in  our  experience  with  a  case  contra- 
dictory to  a  priori  truths  or  apparently  annihilating  the 
universality  of  their  axioms,  especially  the  validity  of  the 
causal  law,  we  suppose  beforehand  that  we  are  mistaken 
in  our  observations,  that  there  is  at  the  bottom,  some 
error,  illusion  or  even  deception.    We  try  anything  before 


36  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

we  acquiesce  in  such  a  contradiction  of  what  we  consider 
irrefutable  ;  and  such  a  case  is  exactly  what  we  call  the 
impossible. 

An  adherent  of  Auguste  Comte,  who  denied  the  doctrine 
of  apriority  and  declared  that  all  truths  are  gained  from 
experience  by  sensation,  or  a  posteriori,  being  asked  if  he 
would  have  confidence  in  a  careful  observation,  though  it 
might  appear  to  be  in  contradiction  to  mathematical  or 
arithmetical  truths,  for  instance,  that  2x2  are  equal 
to  5,  answered  in  involuntary  haste  :  "  That  could  never 
happen  !"  This  reply,  though  it  slipped  from  his  tongue 
unawares,  is  a  proof  that  he  believed  unconsciously  in 
the  apriority  of  rational  knowledge.  For  the  axiom 
2  X  2  =  4  is  distinguished  from  the  most  complicated 
theorem  a  priori,  not  essentially,  but  merely  by  its 
simplicity. 

There  is  a  certain  puzzle  in  which  a  square,  consisting 
of  8x8  smaller  squares,  is  cut  and  composed  anew  into  a 
rectangle  of  5  x  13  or  65  squares  of  the  same  size  as  the  64 
had  been.  In  the  first  moment  the  illusion  is  perfect. 
Clever  deception  will  add  a  sophism  which  covers  the 
fallacy  of  the  argument.  A  thinking  person,  however, 
will  declare  from  the  very  beginning  that  there  is  some 
deception,  for  he  knows  a  priori  that  a  plane  cannot  be 
increased  by  a  mere  alteration  of  its  form. 

The  empirical  cognition  of  experience  carries  together 
our  observations  one  by  one  in  such  a  way  that  all  our 
knowledge  must  for  ever  remain  fragmentary  piecework. 
And  it  is  natural  that  such  should  be  external  cognizance. 
Internal  cognizance  contrariwise  comprehends  its  truths 
in  their  unity  ;  therefore  the  laws  a  priori  are  always 
complete,  and  what  is  proved  mathematically  will  ever 
be  beyond  doubt. 


CA  [/SAL/TV.  37 

§   3.      CAUSALITY   A   LAW   OF   MOTION. 

Now  causality  is  no  doubt  an  internal  truth,  and  may 
be  proved  as  well  as  any  mathematical  theorem.  Let 
me  mention,  however,  that  rightly  considered,  mathe- 
matical truths  are  not  proved.  All  arguments  of  this 
science  are  reductions  from  the  complicated  to  the 
simpler  and  thence  to  the  self-evident.  The  latter,  how- 
ever, is  never  proved,  but  accepted  on  credit  under  the 
name  of  axiom.  It  may  now  be  shown  that,  in  spite 
of  Hume,  causality,  like  any  a  priori  theorem,  may  be 
traced  to  the  most  simple  axiom,  and  that  i||the  axiom 
of  identity. 

Cause  is  an  event  in  some  state  of  things,  which  ne- 
cessarily leads  to  a  change.     If  you    take  from  a  heap 
of  stones  one  of  the  undermost,  all  those  resting    upon 
it  will  rush  after  and  in  some  way  alter  their  position. 
There  is  no  other  alteration  than  that  which  is  caused  by 
motion.     Everything,  save  the  arrangement,  remains  the 
same  after    as    before    the    change.     But    there    was  an 
occurrence  which  disturbed  the  equilibrium  of  the  whole 
state  of   things  ;     and    to   restore    it,    a    motion    of  the 
disturbed  parts  became  necessary.      The  disturbance  of 
the  equilibrium  is  the  cause,  its  restoration    the    effect. 
A  spark  thrown  into  powder   results   in   an    explosion. 
The  spark  is  not  the  cause,  but  its  being  thrown    into 
the    powder,  its  approach  to  the  inflammable    material. 
The  effect  is  the  change  in  the  composition  of  the  powder. 
Nor,  in  the  first  instance,  is  the  stone  the  cause,  but  its 
removal,  /.  e.,  the  act  of  its  being  taken  away.    Causes  as    ^    >   •      "^ 
well    as    effects    are    always    some    events,    occurrences,    y:-r-tuv^^"^> 
incidents,  which  happen.     They  are  never  things  or  ob-    x^-^^'-^^  ^^'^^ 
jects,  which  exist.     And  so  the  term  means  an  altera-  ^'*'^^^'^^■ 
tion  in  some  state  of  circumstances,  a  change  of  situa-  „         .^  C^ 
tion,  position,    posture,    or   a    replacement  and  new  ar-  i^  <^'*w\)  -»n 

^tJk.Afc'V.*^    \/\     to — \^WA,  OkJI<-**«<\-* 


-flr-Awl.«<J     b>>^Q,«UkAAAA)     t/V» 


o,'i<!,-i   cs 


,t».AA-^»- 


38  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

rangement  of  some  conjuncture.  In  one  word,  causality 
is  a  lazv  of  motion.  One  alteration  in  some  state  of 
things  produces  another ;  thus  effect  is  a  change  in  con- 
sequence of  another  prior  change.  Matter,  however,  as 
we  know  from  the  law  of  preservation  of  force  and  mat- 
«-w -^v^  ^gj.^  remains  unaltered  and  unchanged.  After  the  explo- 
Le/>A.e»^V'»'-<-**N^^^°'^  ^^^  ^^^  single  atoms  of  the  powder  are  still  in  exist- 
ence, though  in  an  entirely  different  composition.  But, 
apart  from  this  difference  of  the  combination  of  atoms, 
matter  is  the  same  before  and  after  the  explosion.  It 
remains  identical  in  the  change,  and  we  may  call  caus- 
ality thQ  ^dcjitity  in  change.  '      <.  » •         '  »"■ 

In  every  case  the  transformation  worked  by  causality 
is  an  alteration  effected  by  movement.  The  single  atoms 
of  matter  remain  unchanged,  but  they  have  often  under- 
gone a  metastasis  in  their  combination.  For  instance,  if 
water  boils,  it  evaporates,  and  seems  to  disappear  ;  but 
no  !  The  gaseous  hydrogen,  though  invisible  to  our  eyes, 
hovers  in  the  air.  Not  a  drop  is  lost  after  the  transfor- 
mation into  the  gaseous  state  of  aggregation.  We  know 
it  a  priori ;  and  all  this  is  confirmed  and  corroborated 
by  experience.  But  if  we  did  not  know  it  from  internal 
meditation,  how  could  we  state  such  a  law  so  assuredly 
and  emphatically  as  being  universal  and  without  any 
exception  }  It  is  merely  because  we  comprehend  the 
truths  of  internal  cognition  in  their  totality  and  com- 
pleteness. True,  experience  endorses  it  in  single  in- 
stances. But  that  is  merely  the  countersign,  to  sup- 
port, to  second  and  uphold  it.  The  warrant  is  given  by 
pure  reason  independent  of  experience,  which  explains  it 
by  examples,  thus  testifying  to  and  ratifying  a  law,  which 
can  not  be  otherwise  and  is  self-evident  exactly  as 
2x2=4. 


CA  USALITY.  39 

§  4.      CAUSE    AND    EFFECT   DOES    NOT   MERELY    MEAN     A 
SUCCESSION. 

The  mark  of  difference,  which  distinguishes  the  erudite 
from  the  ilHterate  man,  is  the  acknowledgment  of  the 
apriority,  and,  so  far  as  the  lack  of  this  influences  the 
latter,  we  call  him  superstitious.  Let  causality  be  merely 
empirical,  let  it  be  a  law,  not  as  we  have  derived  it  like 
a  law  of  pure  mathematics,  logic,  or  mechanics  by  deduc- 
tion, but  by  induction,  and  we  could  never  be  sure  of  its 
necessity  or  universality,  and  any  superstition  would  be 
admissible  with  the  same  legitimacy  as  science.  We 
would  not  be  entitled  to  refuse  any  pretended  experience, 
not  even  of  the  most  absurd  events.  If,  as  Hume  thinks, 
and  as  John  Stuart  Mill  states,  cause  and  effect  are  a  mere 
following,  not  an  ensuing,  then,  indeed,  the  theory  of  the 
excellence  of  wine,  grown  in  comet  years,  would  be 
proved  as  scientifically  as  anything  could  be,  for  experience 
is  in  favor  of  it.  But  it  is  such  an  experience  as  proves 
nothing,  because  we  observe  a  succession,  not  a  connec- 
tion, and  not  a  whit  of  causal  concatenation.  Reid  is  «^-)j*-*  -  ^^^  '^ 
quite  right  in  saying  (though  John  Stuart  Mill  tries  to  ^  '>''-*^^** 
escape  the  consequence  in  longwinded  explanations)  that, 
according  to  the  principle  of  the  positivist  school,  night 
would  be  the  effect  of  day,  as  we  observe  their  constant 
succession. 

If  science  could  not  penetrate  deeper  into  the  connec- 
tion of  phenomena  than  by  stating  their  succession,  there 
would  not  properly  exist  any  such  science  as  that  which 
has  for  its  object  the  enquiry  into  causal  connection  and 
the  establishment  of  laws,  in  conformity  with  which  single 
events  must  occur  thus  and  not  otherwise.  And  if  we  were 
not  sure  of  causality  beforehand  by  merely  internal  insight, 
if  it  were  not  a  priori,  we  should  not  be  astonished  at 
finding  cases  in  which  causality  does  not  work,  where  its 


40  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

operation  is  suspended,  or  where  there  rules  an  other 
arrangement:  for  instance,  such  a  kind  of  preter-  or  super- 
natural causality,  as  is  supposed  to  exist  in  astrology  and 
alchemy.  Therefore,  the  necromancer  and  thaumaturgist 
quote  and  appeal  to  Shakespeare's  dictum  : 

There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  Horatio, 
Than  are  dreamed  of  in  our  philosophy. 

Certainly  there  are  many  things  which  we  have  not 
explored  as  yet  and,  moreover,  there  are  some  that  by 
their  very  nature  are  unsearchable,  but  there  are  none  in 
contradiction  with  reason.  Whenever  there  appears  to  be 
such  a  contradiction,  there  is  some  delusion  either  arising 
from  our  error  or  from  the  fraud  and  deceit  of  others. 

When  a  person  really  commences  to  doubt  whether 
causality  be  not  suspended  in  a  certain  case,  even  in  in- 
c  ifferent  matters,  he  is  overcome  unawares  and  becomes 
possessed,  as  it  were,  with  a  certain  demoniac  uneasiness. 
The  more  highly  organized  animals  do  the  same  ;  horses 
tremble,  and  dogs  whine  if  events  happen,  (for  instance, 
eclipses  of  the  sun,)  which  they  can  not  account  for.  The 
superstitious  take  them  as  marvels  and  prodigies  worked 
by  some  supernatural  power.  The  erudite  man  alone  is 
not  overawed  in  such  cases.  He  thinks  and  ruminates, 
nor  is  he  satisfied  until  he  has  found  the  causal  connec- 
tion which  in  the  most  unaccountable  facts  he  supposes 
ever  to  exist. 

So  we  have  arrived  at  a  fair  explanation  of  causality  ; 
it  is  a  law  of  motion.  Cause  is  no  object  but  some  alter- 
ation in  a  state  of  things  by  which  another  alteration  is 
effected.  Nor  is  effect  an  object  ;  it  is  simply  the  new 
state  of  things  as  produced  by  the  cause.  So  neither  can 
the  watchmaker  be  called  a  cause  nor  the  watch  an  effect. 
^'  YW?,  work  is  rather  the  cause  and  the  proper  composition 
^^lT^^r„^»^,  of  wheels,  dial  and  hands  the  effect. 


77 


CA  USALITY.  41 

Causality  changes  ;  it  may  combine  or  dissolve,  yet  it 
never  creates  or  destroys  matter,  the  atoms  and  forces  of 
which  remain  the  same  throughout  the  infinite  concate- 
nation of  causes  and  effects. 

§   5.      KANT'S   IDEALISM. 

Before  we  venture  on  the  more  intricate  difficulties  of 
causality,  we  must  dwell  for  a  space  on  a  seeming  subtlety, 
which  is,  however,  of  great  consequence.  For  there  re- 
mains to  be  explained  the  relation  of  the  internal  truths 
to  the  external  world.  This  relation  being  the  bridge 
between  the  subject  and  the  object,  between  thinking 
and  existing,  between  the  mind  and  the  universe,  is  the 
basis,  whereon  our  conception  of  the  world  rests.  The  in- 
ternal truths  are  held  to  be  valid  a  priori,  because  they  are 
necessary  and  universal.  Now,  passing  the  bridge  from 
the  subjective  a  priori  side  of  the  interior  of  our  soul  to 
the  exterior  environment  in  the  world  abroad,  we  find 
there  those  same  truths  corroborated  a  posteriori ;  for 
the  highest  universal  laws  of  experience  are  exactly  the 
same  as  those  of  pure  reason.  And  the  planets  wander 
on  their  ways  through  the  heavens  in  such  ellipses  as  we 
may  construct  in  pure  mathematics.  Causality  in  the 
same  way  is  valid  as  far  as  ever  our  experience  extends 
and  never  have  any  theorems  of  arithmetic  and  mathe- 
matics been  proved  by  experience  to  be  erroneous.  Thus 
by  experience  we  become  acquainted  a  second  time  and  a 
posteriori  with  the  rational  truths,  which  we  learned  a  pri- 
ori. And  while  sensation  introduces  us  into  the  material 
contents  of  the  world,  these  general  laws  afford  an  insight 
into  the  mere  form  of  the  world,  viz.,  time  and  space. 

Now  there  arises  this  question  :  these  formal  laws  in 
nature  around  us  being  identical  with  those  internal  laws 
within  us,  where  lies  their  source,  and  on  which  side  are 


-¥■ 


42  MONISM  ANDJIELIORISM. 

they  original,  and  on  which  have  they  been  borrowed  ? 
And  if  they  are  borrowed  on  either,  how  arises  this  won- 
drous harmony  ? 

Kant,  in  his  Prolegomena  §  36,  faces  this  difficulty 
and  puts  the  question  as  follows  :  "  How  is  nature  itself 
possible?"  And  he  ratiocinates:  "The  highest  laws  of 
nature  {viz.,  in  the  exterior  of  the  world  outside  of  and 
around  us)  are  found  independent  of  all  experience 
within  ourselves  a  priori^  Astonished  at  this  congru- 
ency,  he  asks  :  "  How  arises  this  congruency  ?"  And  he 
imagines  that  there  are  only  two  possibilities.  '*  Either," 
he  says,  *'  we  borrow  the  rational  truths  from  nature,  that 
means,  we  receive  them 'by  experience, — or  they  are 
transferred  from  us  to  nature."  The  first  solution  is  that 
of  Locke  ;  after  him  David  Hume  and  the  positivists  of 
the  present  day  have  taken  the  same  ground.  Such  a 
solution,  however,  is  impossible,  as  Kant  has  irrefutably 
proved  the  apriority  of  time  and  space.  As  they  are 
independent  of  any  experience  they  can  not  be  borrowed 
from  the  exterior  world.  Therefore  Kant  says  :  "  There 
is  left  but  the  other  solution,  which  is  the  reverse  of 
Locke's  :  *  Our  reason  dictates  its  laws  to  nature,'  i.  e., 
our  reason  is  instituted  or  organized  in  such  a  way  that  it 
can  not  perceive  the  world  otherwise  than  in  the  shape  of 
time  and  space,  and  connected  by  causality  as  well  as  by 
the  apparatus  of  apriority.  Whether  the  world  is  so  or 
no  we  know  not  ;  it  appears  to  us  so,  and  we  can  not  help 
seeing  the  world  in  the  frame  of  time,  space,  and  causal- 
ity. But  it  is  our  mind  that  frames  it  thus  ;  the  frame 
does  not  belong  to  the  picture,  though  we  are  not  able  to 
take  it  out  and  handle  it  as  it  really  is." 

This  is  what  Kant  calls  his  idealism.  The  ratiocination, 
however,  on  which  it  rests,  contains  a  fallacy  which  led 
him  astray.  He  erroneously  held  a  priori  identical  with 
subjective,  i.e.y  belonging  to  and   inherent   in  the  ego; 


CA  USALITY.  43 

and  all  truths  a  priori  w^x^  in  this  way  supposed  to  be  sub- 
jective. Now  they  are  so  indeed,  in  some  respects,  inas- 
much as  they  grow  internally  within  the  ego.  And  expe- 
riencing their  objectivity  in  the  world  outside  of  us,  Kant 
argues  that  there  must  needs  be  a  loan,  given  by  our  ego 
to  the  world.  Locke's  solution  is  certainly  wrong,  as  the 
apriority  of  time  and  space  is  undeniable.  So  Kant  sees 
no  other  way  than  that  which  constitutes  his  idealism, 
according  to  which  time  and  space  and  the  whole  world 
as  we  perceive  it  are  not  real  but  ideal,  our  mind  dictating 
the  fundamental  laws. 

§  6.      THE   FOUNDATION   OF   MONISM. 

But  is  there  no  other  possible  way  out  of  the  difficulty? 
There  is  a  third  way  to  a  solution  ;  it  is  midway  between 
Locke  and  Kant,  overlooked  by  Kant,  and  the  only 
remaining  way.  Let  us  try  it  and  hope  that  it  will  lead 
to  a  more  satisfactory  result. 

First  let  us  ask,  what  is  the  subject  in  the  objective 
world  }  What  are  we  ourselves  in  regard  to  our  sur- 
roundings .''  If  we  were  standing  outside  of  ourselves, 
inquiring  into  what  we  call  our  subject,  our  ego,  the 
centre  of  our  cognition,  we  should  find  it  to  be  an  ob- 
ject like  all  other  objects  beside  it. 

How  now,  with  regard  to  our  problem  .-'  Are  not  the 
internal  truths  inherent  and  a  priori  to  all  subjects 
which  swarm  around  us  as  objects  ;  and  should  we  not 
suppose,  therefore,  that  they  belong  rather  to  our  ob- 
jective existence  .-'  Every  ego  in  this  world  (as  it  must 
needs  have — or  rather  must  be — an  objective  existence) 
finds  the  internal  truths  in  this  objective  existence,  i.  e., 
within  itself,  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  able  to  construct  them 
a  priori.  In  consequence  of  this,  everything  existing 
exists  materially  and  must,  of  necessity,  partake  of  the 


44  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

form    of    the   world,    viz.,    time    and   space.     Thus    the 

formal   laws    of  nature  are    valid  in  the   same.     As  it  is 

extended,    it    partakes  of  space  ;  it  moves,  and  a  state 

antecedent  and  consequent  gives  the  difference  of  time  ; 

it  changes  according  to,  and  is  conditioned  by,  causality. 

AAnd  such  being  the  laws  of  objective  existence,  they  ad- 

I  here  to  any  object  permeating  its  entire  essence  so  that  any 

,    object,  if  developed  to  the  state  of  consciousness,  will  find 

these  laws  by  mere  reflection  and  meditation,  as  they  are 

part  of  ourselves,  viz.,  the  formal  part  of  our  existence. 

This  answer  to  the  problem  of  apriority  is  very 
simple.  It  also  affords  information  concerning  the  origin 
of  these  internal  truths,  a  query  which  Kant  nowhere 
proposed,  and  never  answered.  And  moreover,  it  justifies 
our  assumption  of  internal  truths  as  granted.  Their 
universality  and  necessity  rest  de  facto  on  the  idea  that 
the  form  of  nature  (pure  space)  is  everywhere  the  same  ; 
every  thing  that  exists  partakes  of  it,  and  is  subject  to, 
and  conditioned  by,  its  laws.  Thus  we  know  that  the 
laws  of  pure  space,  as  we  recognize  them  within  us,  are 
the  same  in  our  existence  as  anywhere  else.  For  space 
is  space  anywhere  and  everywhere;  it  is  the  mere  form  of 
material  existence. 

This  solution  of  Hume's  problem  will  be  recognized  by- 
and-by  as  the  only  possible  and  true  one.  It  affords  a 
basis  for  science  which  Hume  despaired  of  finding  and 
which  neither  Locke,  Auguste  Comte  and  John  Stuart 
Mill  on  the  one  side,  nor  Kant  and  the  transcendental 
philosophers  on  the  other,  can  give.  It  fills  the  gap  be- 
tween subject  and  object,  between  spirit  and  matter  ;  it 
reconciles  idealism  and  realism,  explains  the  connection  of 
the  a  priori  with  the  a  posteriori,  thus  restoring  harmony 
in  the  universe  between  the  ego  and  the  cosmos,  and 
scientifically  establishes  a  conception  of  the  world  which 
we  comprise  under  the  name  of  Monism,  y 


FIRST   CAUSE  AND   FINAL  CAUSE. 


§    I.      THE   ANTINOMY   OF   FIRST   CAUSE. 

Causality  is  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  and  nothing 
else.  There  is,  however,  such  a  confusion  about  the  idea 
of  cause,  that  we  must  be  particularly  careful ;  and  in  no 
language  is  the  misuse  and  inadequacy  of  words  greater 
than  in  English.  Cause  as  well  as  effect  is  an  event,  or  '^ 
fact  ;  the  cause  is  past,  if  the  effect  has  ensued.  Both 
are  temporal,  as  they  designate  merely  a  state  of  affairs. 
So,  as  was  stated  above,  cause  is  never  a  thing  ;  much 
less  can  a  person  be  called  a  cause.  I  may  cause  someji- 
effect  by  some  action,  I  may  produce  some  result  by  my 
labor,  and  my  person  may  be  accessory  to  some  event, 
even  through  its  mere  presence,  but  I  myself  am  never  a 
cause. 

The  mistake  is  magnified,  if  God  is  called  the  ^rst  cause.  ,  "Vv^-*"*- ,  ^c^ 
First  causes  are  of  mere  relative  existence.  They  are  the  ^  ^.x^-  ^^ ^ 
starting  points  of  a  series  of  some  longer  chain  of  causes  C.o'-*-'-^.*'  <w^4^-^ 
and  effects.  According  to  La  Place,  the  cause  of  the  ro-  fcU^  <-<>  <*^  ^«^ 
tation  in  that  gaseous  nebula,  from  which  our  planets  have 
been  developed,  was  the  unequal  partition  of  matter.  So 
it  was  the  fijst  cause  in  the  formation  of  the  solar  system,  U-*-'**^  :S"^-^-^ 
which  happened  so  many  millions  of  years  ago.  It  has  w^.<-«iA  a-es^>*/»-( 
passed  as  any  cause  passes  that  is  merely  some  temporal  Uv^  v^aoujj;.*--** 
event.  y^-**^Xu.^ 

We  reject  and  condemn,  therefore,  the  idea  of  a  first 
cause  in  the  sense  of  Creator,  as  a  contradiction  in  itself. 
And  those  who  call  God  the  first  cause  have  either  a 
vague  idea  of  what  they  mean,  or  they  intend  to  say  that 
God  is  the  Ji/ial  principle  of  the  world,  the  most  general 


.ex. 


46  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

law,  governing  the  whole  universe,  the  fundamental  basis, 
and,  so  to  speak,  the  ground  on  which  everything  rests, 
from  which  all  existences  spring  and  originate,  and  the 
ultimate  reason  to  which  we  trace  the  existence  of  the 
cosmos.  Such  a  principle,  or  whatever  other  name  you 
may  be  pleased  to  give  it,  is  not  a  passing  cause,  which 
happens  once  and  exists  no  longer,  but  a  living  presence, 
which  pervades  the  whole  world,  and  is  the  operating 
force  in  all  causes  and  the  causation  in  causality. 

After  what  we  have  stated  here,  thesis  as  well  as  anti- 
thesis in  Kant's  fourth  antinomy  about  an  absolutely 
necessary  Being  are  right,  though  for  the  sake  of  clear- 
ness we  must  express  this  opposition  in  other  words. 
The  thesis  declares  :  tJiere  is  an  absolutely  Jiecessajy  final 
principle  of  tJiis  world ;  though,  according  to  the  anti- 
thesis, there  does  not  exist  a  first  caiise. 

§  2.  THE  KNOWABLE  AND  UNKNOWABLE. 

It  is  this  final  principle  which  constitutes  the  philo- 
sophical idea  of  a  God  to  the  theist,  which  gives  to  the 
philosopher  the  basis  of  what  is  called  metaphysics,  and 
which  an  atheist  like  Herbert  Spencer  calls  the  "  un- 
knowable." It  is  the  enigma  of  the  world  which  by  its 
very  nature  can  not  be  comprehended. 

It  may  be  hinted  here  that,  with  the  exception  of  Kant, 
philosophers  have  hitherto  been  accustomed  to  speak 
dogmatically  about  the  metaphysical  province  of  thought. 
So  Herbert  Spencer  begins  his  philosophy  with  the  state- 
ment of  the  unknowable,  without  even  trying  to  justify 
its  supposition.  The  positivists  simply  ignore  it,  a  method 
easier  even  than  that  of  Spencer,  though  one  which  by 
no  means  relieves  us  of  the  difficulty. 

Before  we  venture  on  metaphysics,  let  us  know  what 
physics   is,   and  before    we  make   statements  about   the 


FIRST  CAUSE  AND  FINAL    CAUSE.  4/ 

unknowable,  let  us  define  what  is  knowable;  especially  let 
us  have  a  clear  conception  as  to  what  is  the  process,  by 
which  that  cognizance  is  attained.  If  that  is  understood, 
I  trust,  that  from  the  nature  of  cognition  itself  we  may 
find  the  limit  at  which  our  knowledge  comes  to  a  stand 
and  where  the  province  of  the  unknowable  commences. 


§  3.      THE   THREE   PRINCIPLES   OF   COGNITION. 

Cognition  means  the  tracing  of  causality  or  the  search 
for  that  law,  according  to  which  matter  moves  in  space. 
Matter,  space  and  movement  we  call  therefore  the  prin- 
ciples of  cognition,  (i)  Space  is  the  source  of  our  internal, 
(2)  matter  of  our  external  knowledge,  and  (3)  in  motion 
we  have  a  combination  of  both.  By  means  of  these  three 
principles  we  are  able  to  comprehend  anything  in  the 
world — yes,  anything,  except  the  world  itself,  and  so 
really  nothing.  The  eye  may  see  anything  except  itself; 
it  sees  all  objects  around  it,  but  it  cannot  see  its  own 
seeing. 

These  principles  of  cognition,  simple  and  plain  as  they 
seem  at  first  sight,  are  by  their  very  nature  incompre- 
hensible. I.  Space,  which  we  recognize  intuitively  and 
grasp  internally,  the  laws  of  which  are  self-evident  and 
a  priori,  which  we  fancy  we  understand  so  thoroughly, 
simply  by  being  in  the  interior  of  it,  and  comprising  all 
its  regularity  in  most  accurately  formulated  mathematical 
theorems — this  same  space  is  entirely  incomprehensible 
in  its  totality.  We  call  it  infinite,  a  negative  term,  which 
merely  signifies  our  inability  to  grasp  it  in  its  unity. 

2.  Our  cognition  of  matter  moves  in  an  exactly  con- 
trary direction.  We  know  matter  from  its  outside  ;  we 
observe  how  it  acts,  but  are  not  admitted  to  its  interior. 
What  matter  really  is,  we  shall  never  know,  though  we 
may  analyze  it  and  comprehend  all  its  properties.     To 


er-^ 


48  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

external  knowledge  it  seems  so  intelligible,  lucid  and 
natural  ;  its  existence  is  simply  a  fact.  Yet  we  are  not 
able  to  grasp  its  inwardness,  and  Faust's  desire  : 

That  I  may  detect  the  inmost  force 
Which  binds  the  world  and  guides  its  course, 
Its  germs,  productive  powers,  explore 
And  rummage  in  empty  words  no  more — 

can  never  be  fulfilled. 

3.  Movement  is  a  fact,  but  we  cannot  account  for  it. 
The  whole  universe  is  in  constant  motion.  In  each  in- 
dividual case  we  recognize  a  cause,  which,  being  itself 
motion,  produces  another  motion.  We  do  our  best  to 
explain  each  single  case  by  establishing  some  natural 
law  ;  and  this  law,  together  with  other  and  kindred  laws, 
will  find  its  reason  in  some  higher  or  more  general  law, 
and  so  on  up  to  the  highest  universal  reason,  which  should 
comprise  and  account  for  all  others.  But  this  universal 
law  operating  in  all  individual  cases,  the  final  causation 
in  causality,  the  last  principle,  the  ground  and  reason  of 
movement,  is  withdrawn  from  our  comprehension,  for  it 
would  be  absurd  to  look  for  a  more  general  reason  of  the 
last  and  universal  reason.  Here  we  arrive  at  the  natural 
limit  of  our  reasoning  power.  And  so  we  are  kept  out- 
side and  not  admitted  into  the  Holy  of  Holies.  The 
sanctum  sanctissimum  of  cognition  is  locked  for  ever. 

§  4.   THE  TREBLE  ENIGMA  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Thus  all  objects  in  the  world  are  comprehensible  by 
the  principles  of  cognition,  viz.,  by  space,  matter,  move- 
ment ;  as  cognizance  is  nothing  else  than  tracing  how 
matter  moves  in  space.  Yet  these  principles  of  cognition 
themselves  are  incomprehensible,  and  so  the  enigma  of 
the  world  is  threefold  :  The  problem  of  space  is  its  in- 
finitude, that  of  matter  its  eternity,  that  of  movement  the 
ground  or  last  causation  of  movement. 


^V-'N^Vv^ 


FIRST  CAUSE  AND  FINAL    CAUSE.  49 

§  5.      FINAL  CAUSE   AND   EFFICIENT  CAUSE. 

The  confusion  which  generally  prevailed  and  still  pre- 
vails, has  produced  another  odd  idea  expressed  by  a  word 
even  more  odd  than  first  cause,  viz.:  causa  finalis  ox  final 
cause,  in  opposition  to  causa  efficiens,  or  efficient  cause, 
the  latter  meaning  the  usual  causes  as  they  operate  ac- 
cording to  the  inexorable  law  of  necessity,  and  the  former 
meaning  some  other  kind  of  cause,  arranged  by  some 
conscious  being  for  effecting  some  certain  result,  some 
fifiis  or  end,  which  we  commonly  call  purpose.  Purpose 
is  the  intended  effect. 

The  terra  final  cause  has  been  invented  on  the  supposi- 
tion, that  there  exist  two  kinds  of  causality,  the  one  reg- 
ulated by  chance,  the  other  by  some  conscious  will. 
On  this  field,  the  two  parties,  the  dogmatists  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  radicals  on  the  other,  clash  with  each  other 
in  fierce  conflict.  Here  the  struggle  has  been  even  more 
intense  than  anywhere  else,  (though  Kant  did  not  receive 
it  into  his  antinomies,)  for  here  the  nerve  of  the  questions 
lies.  The  dogmatist  says  :  '■^  There  is  some  trajismundane 
power  that  has  at'ranged  the  world  to  accomplish  some  ends 
or  purposes"  (the  Greek  word  is  teXo?,  from  which  such  a 
contemplation  of  the  world  is  called  teleology)  ''  otherzvise" 
they  argue,  ^^  the  tiniverse  would  be  a  chaos,  but  no  costnos." 
The  radicals,  however,  assert,  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  transmimdane  existence,  fior  an  arrangemcfit  like  final 
causality. 

This  time,  however,  the  combatants  arrange  them- 
selves somewhat  differently.  Kant  unquestionably  joins 
the  negative,  and  Schopenhauer  is  found  siding  with  the 
theologians  ;  though  he  does  not  believe  in  a  God,  his 
transcendent  Will  is,  according  to  his  theory,  the  Creator 
of  the  world,  not  much  different  from  a  God. 


50  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

§  6.     THE  IDEA  OF  A  FINIS  IN  CAUSATION. 

We  must  be  brief  and  therefore  state  beforehand  that 
we  can  not  accept  two  essentially  different  kinds  of  causal- 
ity and  that  the  expression  fi)ial  cause  leads  to  confused 
and  erroneous  views.  It  is,  at  best,  a  very  unfortunate 
expression.  But  here,  as  often  happens,  a  grain  of  truth 
is  in  the  chaff,  and  in  some  degree  both  parties  are  right. 
The  word  fifial cause,  to  be  sure,  must  be  blotted  out,  and  I 
propose  to  use  in  its  stead  s\rc\^\y  faiis — answering  to  the 
Greek  rf'Aos,  and  designating  what  Germans  call  Zweck 
and  Ziel. 

The  idea  of  a  fi7iis  is  indispensable  in  the  explanation 
of  causality  ;  and,  as  it  is  of  practical  import,  we  can  not 
omit  it  in  our  investigation.  Causality,  as  we  have 
learned,  is  a  law  of  movement.  If  there  occurs  any  cause, 
some  motion  ensues.  For  instance  :  the  storm  tears  a 
tile  from  a  roof  and  carries  it  in  the  direction  of  the  blast. 
In  this  case,  the  finis  or,  so  to  say,  intended  end  of  such 
a  cause,  lies  in  the  direction  which  the  hurricane  takes. 
The  tile,  however,  as  soon  as  it  has  lost  its  place  on  the 
roof,  has  a  tendency  to  fall  straight  to  the  ground  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  gravitation.  Its  finis  or  intended  end 
would  be  towards  the  centre  of  the  earth.  Neither  of 
these  two  fines,  however,  is  carried  into  effect,  for  the 
stone  will  take  the  way  of  some  parabola  or  hyperbola, 
resulting  from  the  two  directions  of  these  different  fines. 

Every  line  of  motion  has  its  zvJieJice  and  its  whither. 
The  whence  is  the  cause,  the  whither  the  finis.  Some- 
times, though  certainly  very  seldom,  the  point  of  motion 
moves  exactly  in  the  straight  line  in  which  its  finis  lies. 
In  such  a  case  the  finis  will  be  identical  with  the  real 
effect.  There  is  but  one  uninfluenced,  unchanged  direc- 
tion. The  cause  (C)  drawn  from  the  starting  point  to  the 
finis  (F)  meets  in  a  straight  line,  the  actual  result  or  effect 


FIRST  CAUSE  AND  FINAL    CAUSE.  5 1 

(E).  But  in  a  circular  motion,  C  is  a  point  on  the  cirum- 
ference,  F  lies  in  the  direction  of  the  tangents,  and  E  in 
the  curve  of  the  circle.  The  motion  of  the  earth  has  its 
fiftis  constantly  in  the  tangent  of  its  elliptic  path.  But 
as  it  gravitates  toward  the  sun,  this  tendency  is  never 
carried  into  effect  ;  and  the  actual  result  is  the  diagonal 
bettueen  the  two  forces,  justly  called  the  resnltant,  forming 
in  this  case  the  curve  of  an  ellipse. 

And  in  the  same  way  man's  actions  have  a  certain  aim 
and  purpose,  which  need  not  necessarily  be  identical 
with  the  result  of  his  actions.  But  considering  their 
ethical  appreciation,  we  take  care  to  judge  not  according 
to  the  result,  but  with  reference  to  this  fi7tis,  purpose  or 
aim,  which  man  tends  toward  or  aspires  to.  For  in 
reality  this  and  nothing  else  shows  his  character,  as  it  ac- 
counts for  the  motives  by  which  he  allows  himself  to  be 
influenced,  and  thus  the  actions  of  man  not  as  they  are, 
but  as  they  are  intended  to  be,  reveal  his  inmost  nature. 

All  acti(ms^f^jTiaii»jlifferefi^t-as-they-may  be,  wi41  be  of 
a  certain  type,  congenial  to  his  character,  because  his 
character  is  the  ground  from^whicli-all  his  motives  start. 
And  this  remaining  to  a  certain  extent  the  same  through- 
out his  life,  all  he  does,  says  and  intends,  will  be  in 
unfailing  harmony.  His  virtues  and  his  vices  will  bear 
some  resemblance  and  correspond  ;  and  moreover,  they 
will  show  their  common  origin. 

In  the  same  way  matter  under  certain  circumstances 
will  show  certain  qualities.  So  sulphur  shines  in  the  dark, 
it  is  inflammable,  it  melts  in  a  heat  of  so  many  degrees, 
such  and  such  is  its  specific  weight,  etc.,  etc.;  and  all  these 
properties  form  single  characteristics  of  this  element, 
which  in  its  unity  Ave  call  sulphur.  But  in  order  to  find 
out  its  nature,  we  must  put  it  to  different  tests,  called 
experiments,  and  by  such  experiments  we  find  out  how 
it  operates  under  different  circumstances. 


52  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

The  character  of  man  and  the  properties  of  elements 
are  inquired  into  in  such  a  way,  according  to  the  law  of 
'  causation,  and  whosoever  would  get  at  the  truth,  at  what 
the  last  principles  of  the  universe  may  be,  must  look  for 
the  ends  and  aims  to  which  its  development  tends.  And 
it  is  only  ihis  finis  in  the  arrangement  of  the  world  that 
can  give  us  some  light  upon  the  last  principle  of  the 
cosmos. 


§  7.      FINIS   AND   EVOLUTION. 

There  is  no  denying  that  there  is  such  2.  fijiis  in  the  uni- 
verse as  we  have  described,  though  it  does  not  by  any 
means  prove  to  be  the  teleology  of  the  dogmatist.  We 
think  that  Dr.  McCosh  in  his  "  Energy,  Efficient  and  Final 
Cause"  is  entirely  mistaken  where  he  says  on  page  43:  "  In 
the  cereals  there  is  .  .  .  a  final  cause  in  the  food  provided 
for  the  nourishment  of  man  and  living  creatures."  The 
finis  in  the  growth  of  plants,  no  doubt,  is  to  produce  seed 
of  their  own  kind  for  the  perpetuation  and  propagation  of 
their  species.  That  such  seed  in  most  instances  serves 
the  purposes  of  man  as  food,  is  of  great  consequence  to 
man,  but  quite  accidental,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
finis  of  the  growth  of  plants. 

We  find  a  fijiis  wherever  we  observe  causation.  Every- 
where in  the  world  therefore  we  meet  with  some  develop- 
ment ;  it  is  found  in  history  as  well  as  in  natural  science. 
Hegel  pointed  it  out  for  the  first  time,  and  though  his  theory 
was  exaggerated  by  himself  and  his  disciples  in  such  a 
way  that  the  historians  of  his  school  rather  constructed 
history  than  inquired  into  it,  yet  the  merit  due  to  him 
cannot  be  denied.  The  history  of  mankind  is  not,  as 
Schopenhauer  says,  a  vague  dream  of  humanity,  but  a 
well-developed  evolution  of  the  human  idea.  The  same 
work  in  the  more  exact  inquiries  of  natural  sciences,  based 


FIRST  CAUSE  AND  FINAL    CAUSE.  53 

on  experiments  and  observations,  has  been  done  by  Dar- 
win ;  and  Herbert  Spencer's  philosophy  may  justly  be 
called  the  philosophy  of  evohition.  The  systematic  appli- 
cation and  generalization  of  this  idea  is  his  chief  merit 
and  most  worthy  claim  to  originality  of  thought. 

§  8.      MORALITY    THE    ONLY    MEANS    BY    WHICH 
EVOLUTION    IS    POSSIBLE. 

It  is  undoubtedly  a  fact  that  the  development  of  the 
world  tends  toward  a  higher  plan  and  a  better  arrange- 
ment. Matter  itself  in  its  elements  we  know  from  the  law 
oi  conservation  of  force  and  matter  r^rndLins,  the  same  un- 
changed ;  we  suppose  them  to  be  unalterable,  and  they 
are  to-day  as  they  have  been  millions  and  millions  of 
years  ago — yea  from  eternity.  But  the  composition  of 
matter  is  changeable  ;  the  arrangment  in  which  the  ele- 
ments are  combined,  may  be  more  or  less  favorable.  And 
this  arrangement  undergoes  a  constant  alteration  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  causality.  And  there  is  a  tendency  of 
advancement  observable  toward  one  and  the  same  point : 
and  this  aim  is  the  amelioration  of  the  present  state. 
Such  an  improvement  is  only  possible  by  an  unceasing 
struggle,  by  heroic  work,  not  in  the  service  of  egotism, 
but  in  that  of  a  higher  unity,  not  by  indulging  in  the 
happiness  of  the  present,  but  by  severe  labor,  done  in  and 
with  the  hope  of  a  better  future, — in  one  word,  it  is 
merely  possible  by  sacrifice.  So  the  single  individual  has 
to  sacrifice  his  youth's  best  years  for  the  comfort  of  his 
age,  and  in  like  manner  humanity  sacrifices  the  labor  and 
lives  of  its  individuals  for  a  better  future.  Thus  on  the 
way  of  perpetual  sacrifice  the  human  race  throngs  onward 
to  a  higher  and  better  existence  and  so  does  the  whole 
universe. 

And  if  similar  races,  as  humanity  on  earth,  live  on 


54  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

other  planets,  we  may  be  fully  convinced  that  there  is 
also  an  evolution  to  constantly  higher  standpoints,  for 
that  is  the  Jini's  whither  the  cosmical  development  tends. 
However,  the  way  by  which  it  advances  and  the  means 
through  which  it  attains  this  end  is  the  principle  of 
morality.  It  is  a  fact  that  single  units  serve  as  parts  in  a 
higher  unity  ;  like  organs  which  operate  in  an  organism, 
they  work,  they  suffer,  they  sacrifice  themselves  for  the 
good  of  the  whole  of  which  they  form  limbs.  And  the 
act  of  serving  this  higher  interest,  even  with  neglect  of 
personal  desires,  is  what  we  call  morality. 

§  9.      THE   FINIS   OF   EVOLUTION   INFORMS   AS   TO   THE 
CHARACTER   OF   THE   FINAL   PRINCIPLE. 

Only  by  knowing  the  finis,  the  whither  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  world,  can  we  find  out  the  nature  and 
character  of  the  final  principle  of  the  cosmos,  which  re- 
presents the  whence  of  all  movement  in  the  universe,  the 
ultimate  ground  and  source  from  which  all  activity  starts. 
Now,  if  the  tendency  of  amelioration  prevails  every- 
where, we  should  apply  this  law  to  the  final  principle, 
which  pervades  the  macrocosm.  So  the  aspiration  to- 
wards ever  higher  aims  on  the  high  road  of  infinitude  and 
eternity  seems  to  be  the  inmost,  the  sublimest  and  grandest 
characteristic  of  this  final  interior  of  nature,  the  ground- 
work of  the  world.  And  if  this  solar  system  in  which  we 
live  falls  to  pieces,  after  its  due  time,  there  are  other 
suns  with  their  planets  which  will  have  developed  mean- 
while, in  which,  no  doubt,  the  same  principle  is  as  active 
as  it  is  in  this  world  of  ours. 

As  we  have  seen  on  earth  organisms  rising  into  exist- 
ence, developing,  striving,  to  make  straight  the  path  to 
some  higher  state  and  then  dying  away  in  order  to  make 
room  for  organisms  of  higher  rank,  may  there  not  be  a 


FIRST  CAUSE  AND  FINAL    CAUSE.  55 

chance  also  for  a  similar  evolution  from  less  developed 
worlds  to  more  highly  organized  solar  systems,  in  a  way 
of  which  we  have  not,  and  can  not  have,  any  experience  ? 
But  such  an  idea,  we  must  confess,  belongs  to  the  empire 
of  dreamland,  and  so  we  merely  hint  at  it,  as  we  are  not 
inclined  here  to  indulge  in  suppositions  and  possibilities. 

However  this  may  be,  sursiim  is  at  any  rate  the  watch- 
word of  all  evolution  and  the  fijiis  everywhere  percept- 
ible. The  means  by  which  it  is  attained  is  morality;  the 
source  from  which  it  starts  is  the  wonderful  spring  that 
marvelously  and  mysteriously  sets  in  motion  the  whole 
universe. 

So  we  have  learned  i\\2it  first  cause  and  final  cause  are 
confusions ;  yet  gleaning  the  truth  from  these  ideas,  we 
state  that  there  is  some  finis  in  the  world,  which  teaches 
us  what  we  may  know  concerning  the  nature  and  ultimate 
principle  of  the  universe,  as  the  finis  reveals  the  aim  and 
tendency  in  the  cosmos.  The  way,  however,  by  which 
its  end  and,  so  to  speak,  its  purpose  is,  and  can  only  be  j^ 
accomplished,  is  that  of  morality,  as  must  be  stated  in 
the  science  of  ethics. 


THE    TRINITY    OF    MONISM. 


§  I.     CAUSE,  REASON   AND  FINIS. 

THREE  things  are  to  be  carefully  distinguished  in  the 
idea  of  causality,  i.  If  a  man  acts,  the  motive  that 
stirs  him  is  the  cause  {o'^^v  t)  apxv  ^V''  >iiyv(^^oo<i)',  2.  the 
law  according  to  which  he  acts  is  his  character  (r/  ovaia), 
as  the  decision  of  his  will  depends  on  the  quality  of  him- 
self, viz.,  his  nature;  and  3.  the  end  pursued  in  his  action 
is  his  purpose  or  finis  {to  oi)  evsna  or  riXoi).  The  man 
himself  is  what  Aristotle  calls  tf  tXtj  or  to  vyroueipisvov 
{i.  e.  literally :  matter  or  subject) ;  we  should  say  the  object 
of  our  observation,  in  which  the  change  is  noticed.  And 
in  the  same  way  every  phenomenon  has  i.  its  catise  and 
2.  obeys  some  general  law,  which  explains  the  grojind  or 
reason  of  its  occurrence,  and  3.  a  finis,  which  may  become 
eventually  identical  with  its  effect. 

If  some  one  asks,  why  powder  explodes,  he  does  not 
want  to  know  the  cause  of  a  single  case,  for  instance 
that  of  a  recently  discharged  gun,  but  the  reason  of  any 
powder  explosion.  The  cause  or  occasion  was  some  fact, 
some  motion  or  alteration  of  circumstances,  say  the 
approach  of  a  linstock  to  the  touchhole.  The  reason, 
however,  of  this  and  of  any  explosion,  is  not  a  single  fact 
or  event,  not  an  incident  like  the  cause, — the  reason  of  it 
is  a  general  lazv,  establishing  some  trutJi  about  the  pro- 
perties of  the  powder.  And  this  truth  must  be  carefully 
distinguished  from  cause.  To  call  it  a  general  cause,  as 
Hume  does,  leads  to  a  confusion  just  as  bad  as  that  of 
the  ideas  of  first  cause  and  final  cause.  This  truth  is  not 
a  concrete  fact  of  some  certain  case  of  real  and  material 


THE   TRINITY  OF  MONISM.  57 

existence,  but  it  contains  a  concept  which  in  its  abstract- 
ness  applies  to  any  case  of  its  kind.  It  is  not  a  phenoin- 
enon  but  a  laiv. 

Such  a  reason  (in  Latin,  called  ratio,  in  German,  Griaid) 
explains  why  in  any  case  powder  explodes.  In  the  action 
of  man,  the  cause  applies  merely  to  one  transient  act ;  the 
reason,  however,  explains,  why  the  cause  took  effect 
according  to  his  character  in  this  instance  as  well  as  in 
any  similar  condition. 

The  vTCOHSipisvov  or  object  of  observation,  is,  and 
always  must  be,  under  a  certain  condition,  to  explain 
which  is  sometimes  of  the  greatest  import,  as  the  con- 
dition is  usually  accessory  to  the  fact  that  the  cause  takes 
effect.  Condition  embraces  the  state  of  the  object  as  well 
as  the  circumstances  that  surround  it. 

Every  cause  is  the  effect  of  some  prior  cause,  and  so  ad 
infijiitum,  and  every  reason  may  be  explained  by  some 
higher,  i.  e.,  more  general  reason.  Though  the  cause  is 
antecedent  to  its  effect,  the  reason  is  coexistent  with  the 
inference  that  follows  from  it. 

The  finis  or  zvJiither  in  the  motion  of  causation  an- 
swers to  the  whence,  i.  e.,  the  reason  or  general  law 
according  to  which  some  effect  is  produced.  I  observe 
whither  the  vane  points  to  know  whence  the  wind  blows; 
and  when  all  things  fall  to  the  ground  toward  the 
centre  of  the  earth,  the  finis  or  whitJier  of  their  mo- 
tion corresponds  to  the  general  law  of  gravitation.  In 
this  way  the  attraction  of  things  toward  the  earth  is  ex- 
plained. 

The  fi7iis  consciously  aspired  to  is  called  purpose. 
Thus  purpose  exists  only  on  the  condition  of  a  rational 
will,  and  a  man's  purposes  are  inferences  from  his  char- 
acter, which  represents  the  reason  or  general  law  that 
accounts  for  his  aims.  The  finis  or  end  may  not  be 
directly  approachable.    In  such  a  case  the  motion  of  caus- 


58  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

ality  must  pass  through  a  medium,  which  in  the  activity 
of  man  we  call  tJic  means  that  serve  his  purpose. 

In  every  instance  we  can  point  out  i.  the  cause  or  the 
alteration  of  a  state  of  things  which  under  certain  con- 
ditions calls  forth  a  change,  thus  producing  the  effect; 
2.  the  reason  or  ground,  the  question,  why  does  it  happen  ? 
The  answer  is  a  general  law  that  holds  good  in  all  kindred 
cases  ;  and  3.  the  direction  of  the  motion,  its  aim  and 
end,  or  as  we  style  it,  its  finis.  The  finis  of  a  conscious 
will  is  called  purpose. 

§  2.      EXAMPLES   TO   SHOW    THE    DIFFERE^XE    BETWEEN 
CAUSE  AND   REASON. 

Temptation  allied  to  the  hope  that  the  crime  will  not 
be  discovered  may  perhaps  cause  a  man  to  become  a  thief. 
At  any  rate,  some  event  or  incident  must  happen  to  induce 
a  man  to  act  in  this  way.  And  such  an  occurrence  is  the 
cause.  The  reason,  however,  for  the  committal  of  such  a 
crime  may  be  avarice,  egotism,  love  for  a  starving  family, 
or  some  other  quality,  which  is,  under  certain  circum- 
stances, the  begetter  of  thievishness. 

Dr.  James  McCosh,  in  his  essay  on  Energy,  Efficient 
and  Final  Cause,  page  4,  says  :  "  A  picture-frame  falls 
from  a  wall  and  breaks  a  jar  standing  on  a  table  below  ; 
we  say  that  the  frame,  or  rather  the  fall  of  the  frame,  was 
the  cause  of  the  fracture  of  the  jar.  But  the  true  cause, 
that  which  forever  will  produce  the  same  effect,  is  the 
frame  falling  with  a  certain  momentum  and  the  brittle- 
ness  of  the  jar."  In  this  instance  "the  fall  of  the  frame 
with  a  certain  momentum "  is  the  cause,  and  what  Dr. 
McCosh  calls  "true  cause,"  is  no  cause  but  tht  reason, 
establishing  some  truth  about  the  properties  of  the  jar 
and  the  frame,  vis.,  the  brittleness  of  the  jar  and  the 
weight  of  the  frame,  through  which  the  effect  is  produced 


THE   TRINITY  OF  MONISM.  59 

in  this  and  in  any  other  case.  There  is  no  purpose  in  the 
breakage,  yet  there  is  some  finis  in  the  falling  of  the 
frame,  and  the  jar  happens  to  stand  in  its  direction. 

And  further  on  Dr.  McCosh  uses  another  example  ;  he 
says  on  page  7  :  "I  was  prompted  to  write  a  letter  to  a 
friend  by  my  affection  ;  but  the  occasion  was  his  suffering 
a  severe  loss  ;  the  two  actually  called  forth  the  letter." 
In  this  instance,  the  intelligence  of  my  friend's  severe 
loss  is  the  cause  that  prompts  m.e  ;  but  my  affection 
(Dr.  McCosh  calls  it  "a  cause  steadily  operating")  is  the 
reason  why  I  feel  prompted  to  write  ;  and  this  produces, 
according  to  the  law  of  friendship,  the  desire  of  comfort- 
ing and,  if  possible,  helping  my  friend  in  his  emergency. 
The  comfort  and  help  of  my  friend  is  the  aim  and  finis 
of  my  action,  or  as  we  usually  say,  it  is  the  purpose  of  my 
writing  the  letter. 

There  is  an  old  scholastic  dictum,  '■^  cess  ante  causa 
cessat  effectiis ;  if  the  cause  ceases  to  exist,  the  effect 
does  not  exist  any  more."  This  is  wrong,  for  the  cause 
is  passed  whenever  the  effect  is  produced.  If  the  murderer 
pulls  the  trigger  of  his  gun,  the  shot  goes  off  and  his 
victim  is  struck.  The  first  cause  has  passed,  when  the 
effect  is  produced.  And  this  again  is  passed,  when  it 
inflicts  the  fatal  wound.  The  cause  passes  away  with  its 
effect;  the  reason,  however,  remains  in  and  with  its  infer- 
ence. The  inference  disappears  if  the  reason  is  abolished 
or  counteracted. 

The  Romans  kept  their  slaves  in  severe  bondage.  Their 
egotism  was  the  reason  of  their  severity.  When  Christi- 
anity conquered  the  world,  more  humane  ideas  spread, 
restraining  as  much  as  possible  the  barbarity  of  pagan- 
ism. As  the  reason  or  ground  of  keeping  slaves  was  thus 
checked,  its  inference  ceased  to  exist,  and  in  consequence 
of  this,  slavery  became  by  and  by  impossible  ;  it  was 
abolished. 


60  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

Emdc7i  was  once  a  flourishing  Hansa-city,  because  its 
situation  on  the  banks  of  the  Ems  was  exceedingly  favor- 
able. But  its  trade  and  commerce  went  almost  to  decay 
since  the  river  altered  its  course.  We  ask,  why  .^  The 
answer  is,  ccssante  ratione  conseqiieiis  cessat. 

This  same  law  holds  good  if  one  reason  is  counteracted 
by  another.  For  instance,  powder  is  inflammable  and 
explosive.  Dampness  counteracts  its  inflammability;  let 
it  be  wet,  and  it  will,  in  such  a  case,  never  be  explosive. 

§  3.      UNDERSTANDING,   REASON  AND  JUDGMENT. 

The  faculty  of  mind,  by  which  we  perceive  the  causality 
of  phenomena,  is  called  understanding.  It  is  that  faculty 
which  teaches  us  the  use  of  our  senses.  For  instance,  we 
see  some  object :  the  beams  of  light  which  shine  on  the 
object  are  reflected  and  enter  into  our  eye.  So  the  effect 
of  the  presence  of  that  object  is  its  little  picture  on  the 
retina  of  the  eye.  From  this  effect  we  infer  the  presence 
of  the  object  before  us,  supposing  it  to  be  the  cause  of 
that  picture.  In  this  way  it  is  not  so  much  the  eye  that 
sees  as  the  understanding,  the  eye  being  merely  its 
organ  or  instrument  of  seeing.  Without  the  power  of 
understanding  the  eye  is  unable  to  see.  A  man  may 
open  his  eyes  wide  in  a  swoon,  yet  he  does  not  see  ;  the 
pictures  appear  on  the  retina  with  the  same  accuracy  as 
usual,  but  his  understanding  is  paralyzed  and  does  not 
translate  these  miniatures  into  real  perception. 

Understanding  is  a  faculty  which  man  shares  with 
animals. 

The  faculty  of  mind  which  enables  us  to  perceive  the 
ground  or  reason,  why  causes  operate  thus  and  not  other- 
wise, is  called  reason.  Reason  is  among  all  creatures  on 
earth  the  sole  property  of  man.  Reason  not  only  affords 
knowledge  of  general  and  universal  truths,  but  it  is  also 


THE   TRINITY  OF  MONISM.  6 1 

the  capacity  for  abstraction,  and  so  it  creates  concepts  or 
general  ideas.  In  consequence  of  this,  reason  produces 
language,  and  if  fully  developed,  science,  viz.:  a  method- 
ically arranged  system  of  knowledge. 

The  reason  of  some  fact  affords  the  explanation  of  the 
same  in  the  form  of  a  law.  Such  a  law,  though  explain- 
ing all  instances  in  which  it  is  applicable,  is  simply  the 
statement  of  some  general  truth  and  it  in  turn  is  suscept- 
ible of  an  explanation  by  some  higher  truth,  by  some 
more  general  law.  To  accomplish  this  task  is  the  duty 
of  science  as  it  classifies  and  systematizes  all  laws,  ex- 
plaining the  particular  ones  from  the  general  and  these 
from  more  general,  in  the  hope  of  finding  at  length  the 
most  general  or  universal  law,  comprising  and  explaining 
all  others.  And  this  universal  law  is  what  we  call  the 
final  principle  of  the  world. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  reason  is  its  tendency  to- 
ward establishing  a  unity  wherever  it  is  possible.  And 
so  it  points  by  its  very  nature  to  a  conception  of  a  uni- 
versal unity  or  to  monism. 

The  faculty  of  mind  which  affords  an  insight  into  the 
finis,  whither  the  cause  tends,  is  generally  and  most 
properly  called  judgment.  In  a  similar  way  we  form  a 
judgment,  when  we  conclude  in  a  logical  syllogism,  draw 
an  inference  and  form  an  estimate  ;  also  when  we  make 
up  our  mind,  we  determine  to  act  in  a  certain  way  on 
account  of  a  judgment  with  regard  to  the  probable  end 
or  finis  of  our  action. 

And  so  our  intellect,  in  agreement  with  i.  cause, 
2.  ground  (reason),  and  '^.  finis  in  causality,  consists  of 
I.  understanding,  2.  reason,  and  3.  judgment. 


62  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

§  4.      UNIVERSE,   COSMOS   AND   WORLD. 

Thus  monism  establishes  a  unique  and  universal  prin- 
ciple of  the  world  permeating  the  whole  cosmos.  The 
world  is  an  evolution  of  that  one  final  principle  and  the 
single  phenomena  are  so  many  single  oscillations  or  un- 
dulations of  the  general  motion  of  that  grand  stream 
rushing  on  from  the  eternity  of  the  past  to  the  eternity 
of  the  future. 

Monism  means,  i.  a  unity  of  source  to  which  it  traces 
the  origin  and  explanation  of  all  things  and  phenomena 
both  spiritual  and  material,  2.  a  unity  of  principle  animat- 
ing the  whole  world,  arranging  the  order  of  motion  or  the 
mechanics  of  causality,  and  3.  a  unity  oi  its  finis.  There 
is  everywhere  the  same  goal,  whither  the  development  of 
evolution  tends. 

Things  are  not  single  existences,  but  form  one  entire 
whole,  which  in  its  totality  we  call,  with  reference  to 
point  first,  the  universe ;  to  point  second,  the  cosmos,  and 
to  point  third,  tJie  world.  The  first  Latin  word  {universe) 
regards  the  material  umty  of  things,  the  second,  of  Greek 
origin  {cosmos),  represents  their  unity  of  organization, 
the  harmony  of  which  is  the  regularity  oi  space,  and  the 
third,  (our  old  Anglo-Saxon  term  zvorld,  old  German 
werlde,  connected  with  modern  German  werden,  to  grow, 
to  become)  signifies  the  unity  of  growth  in  all  objects, 
i.e.,  the  unity  of  all  tendencies  seemingly  so  different  yet 
striving  for  and  aspiring  towards  the  same  finis.  It  is 
the  unity  of  motion. 

§  5.      TRINITY   AS   RELIGIOUS   IDEA. 

As  soon  as  the  religious  ideas  of  man  are  imbued  with 
philosophical  speculations,  the  conception  of  a  deity  is 
developed  in  natural  course  ;  it  may  be  in  form  of  Mono- 


THE   TRINITY  OF  MONISM.  63 

theism  or  Pantheism.  Certainly  either  view  represents 
a  religious  ideal  of  monism.  In  Judaea  it  was  Monotheism, 
and  so  it  was  in  Arabia;  in  India  we  meet  with  Pantheism, 
and  in  Greece  it  is  rather  doubtful,  whether  the  divine 
mind  ivovi)  of  Anaxagoras  and  the  God  (S-fo;)  of  Plato, 
were  monotheistic  or  pantheistic  conceptions  of  the  deity. 

However,  the  unity  of  monism  is  not  that  of  number, 
but  of  entirety  ;  and  in  accordance  with  the  treble  enigma 
of  the  world,  God  is  conceived  as  a  trinity.  Therefore  we 
need  not  be  astonished  that  the  Christian  trinity  bears 
certain  resemblances  to  Brahma,  Vishnu,  Shiva,  the  tri- 
mur/i  o(  the  Indians,  and  to  the  trinity  of  the  Neo-Plato- 
nists.  Also  the  Edda,  the  bible  of  old  Iceland,  teaches  a 
trinity  of  the  Godhead,  Har,  EfenJiar,  TJwiti  (the  High, 
the  equally  High  and  the  Third),  though  the  latter 
doctrine  was  probably  influenced  by  Christianity. 

The  doctrine  of  trinity  is  by  no  means,  as  Mohammed 
thought,  a  relapse  from  the  Jewish  Monotheism  toward 
pagan  polytheism  ;  but  it  is  a  progress  in  accordance 
with  the  natural  evolution  of  religious  ideas,  a  progress 
which  the  human  mind  naturally  made,  as  it  is  based 
upon  that  other  trinity  exhibited  in  the  law  of  universal 
causality. 


ETHICS. 


§1.     RELIGIONISTS  AND   HEDONISTS. 

ETHICS  is  the  touchstone  of  any  philosophy  by  which 
one  may  gauge  its  depth,  its  validity  and  its  practi- 
cability. Of  the  system  of  Monism  and  Meliorism,  as 
we  propose  it,  ethics  form  an  essential  part,  necessarily 
to  be  considered  even  in  the  mere  outlines  of  the  system. 
It  should  be  stated  beforehand,  however,  that  it  is  not 
the  province  of  philosophy  to  preach  morals.  That  is 
the  work  of  the  preacher  in  the  pulpit.  Ethics  is  a 
science,  and  the  philosopher  has  the  more  difficult  task 
to  substantiate  and  to  lay  the  foundation  for  morals.  The 
first  question  is  :  "  Does  it  exist  at  all .''"  and  the  second  : 
"  What  is  its  scientific  basis.-'  i.e.,  what  is  the  reason 
through  which  it  exists  .-'" 

Throughout  the  history  of  the  past,  there  have  been 
two  parties  of  which  one  may  be  called  the  religionists, 
the  other  Jiedonists  or  utilitarians.  The  religionists  did 
not  know  of  any  other  basis  for  ethics  than  religion, 
both  being  inseparable  to  them,  and  the  hedonists  de- 
clared that  living  morally  and  aspiring  to  happiness  were 
synonymous.  To  the  first  party  belong  the  faithful  and 
orthodox  believers  of  almost  every  creed  ;  to  the  latter 
naturally  freethinkers  incline,  as  having  no  other  or 
better  foundation  after  getting  rid  of  their  dogmatic 
belief.  Both  parties  are  wrong  and  lack  a  real  foundation 
of  ethics.  If  ethics  is  nothing  but  the  commandments 
of  a  God  who  is  going  to  reward  the  obedient  and  punish 
the  disobedient  in  another  world,  then  religion  exists — 
but  no  ethics.     Morals  in  such  a  case  are  a  kind  of  trans- 


ETHICS.  65 

cendent  and  religious  utilitarianism.  And  on  the  other 
hand,  if  you  have  to  act  well  and  to  do  good  merely 
because  it  brings  some  advantages,  as  hedonism  teaches, 
ethics  does  not  exist  either.  And  such  ethics  as  Mr.  Her- 
bert Spencer  proposes  may  correctly  be  called  worldly 
wisdom,  or  prudence,  or  the  art  of  living  sensibly,  or  any- 
thing else,  but  not  ethics. 

§  2.      THE   DOCTRINE   OF   FREE   WILL. 

Religionists  usually  adhere  to  the  dogma  of  free  will, 
while  the  hedonists  do  not  accept  this  doctrine,  but  pro- 
claim it  to  be  in  contradiction  to  the  unyielding  law  of 
causality.  It  is  the  third  of  Kant's  antinomies.  The 
religionists  take  the  positive  side  of  the  thesis,  and  the 
hedonists  the  negative  of  the  antithesis.  If  there  were  no 
freedom  of  will,  ethics  would  not  exist,  for  it  is  freedom 
that  implies  the  responsibilities  for  one's  actions. 

Now,  according  to  the  law  of  causality,  the  actions  of 
man  result  through  the  same  necessity  as  any  event  or 
phenomenon.  It  is  a  strange  confusion  to  make  of  neces- 
sity- and  freedom  a  contradictory  opposition,  so  that 
either  would  exclude  the  other.  If  a  man  can  do  as  he 
pleases,  we  call  him  free  ;  but  if  he  is  prohibited  from 
following  motives  which  stir  him,  if  by  some  restraint  or 
force  he  is  limited,  he  is  not  free.  But  every  man,  if  he  be 
free  or  restrained  under  a  certain  condition,  under  ex- 
actly these  and  no  other  circumstances  must,  of  neces- 
sity, will  just  as  he  does  will,  and  not  otherwise.  As  to 
this,  there  is  no  doubt,  if  causality  is  truly  the  universal 
law  of  the  world. 

The  confusion  from  which  so  many  errors  arise,  is  due 
to  the  similarity  of  the  concepts /^/r^r  and  necessity.  Force 
may  lay  a  restraint  on  free  will.  Where  force  rules, 
free  will  is  annihilated.     Necessity,  however,  is  no  force. 


(£  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM, 

Whoever  is  unable  to  make  this  distinction,  will  never 
get  a  clear  insight  into  the  theory  of  free  will.  Necessity, 
in  such  a  case,  is  the  inevitable  sequence  by  which  a  cer- 
tain result  follows  according  to  a  certain  reason.  It  is 
the  internal  harmony  and  logical  order  of  the  world. 
Force,  however,  is  an  external  restraint,  and  a  foreign 
pressure  exercised  to  check  and  hinder  by  violence.  Give 
the  loadstone  freedom  on  a  pivot,  and  it  will  turn  toward 
the  north,  of  necessity,  according  to  the  qualities  or 
properties  of  magnetism.  But  if  you  direct  it  by  a  pres- 
sure of  the  finger  to  some  other  point,  you  will  exercise 
some  force,  which  does  not  allow  it  to  show  its  real 
nature  and  quality.  Were  the  loadstone  endowed  with 
sentiment  and  gifted  with  the  power  of  speech,  it  would 
say  in  the  first  case  :  *'  I  am  free,  and  of  my  free  will  I 
point  toward  the  north."  In  the  second  case,  however, 
it  would  feel,  that  it  is  acted  upon  and  forced  into  some 
other  direction  against  its  nature,  and  would  declare  its 
freedom  to  be  curtailed. 

It  is  the  same  with  man  ;  and  the  moral  worth  of 
a  man  depends  entirely  upon  what  motives  direct  his 
will.  An  ethical  estimate  of  moral  actions  is  not  possible, 
except  under  the  condition  that  they  are  the  expression 
and  realization  of  free  will.  The  best  action  would 
amount  to  nothing,  if  it  were  a  mere  chance  result  which 
might  have  occurred  otherwise.  The  chief  value  of  any 
moral  deed  rests  on  the  fact  that  the  man  could  not,  under 
the  conditions,  act  otherwise  than  thus,  that  it  was  an 
act  o{  free  will  and,  at  the  same  time,  of  inevitable 
necessity. 

So  we  have  succeeded  in  solving  a  problem,  which  to 
Kant  was  an  antinomy  of  pure  reason  :  and  as  we  have 
in  free  will  a  basis  for  moral  action,  we  may  establish 
upon  it  a  theory  of  ethics  which  will  prove  more  satisfac- 
tory than  that  of  the  religionists  or  hedonists. 


ETHICS.  67 

§   3.      KANT'S    ETHICS. 

Kant  founds  his  morals  on  the  categorical  imperative. 
In  his  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  he  teaches  that  through- 
out nature  there  is  everywhere  the  strict  inflexible  rule  of 
causality.  But  this  thesis  has  its  antithesis  in  the  prac- 
tical reason.  In  the  domain  of  man,  he  says,  liberty 
reigns,  and  instead  of  the  rigid  ''imist,''  he  propounds 
the  moral  '^ ought"  according  to  the  categorical  impera- 
tive. Schopenhauer  justly  criticizes  Kant,  showing  that 
the  establishment  of  an  imperative  is  in  reality  an  aban- 
donment of  an  attempt  to  justify  the  law  of  morals.  It 
is  not  a  critical  but  a  dogmatical  way  of  philosophizing  ; 
and  in  plain  words  it  means  :  as  we  must  needs  have 
morals  and  as  I  cannot  giv^e  them  any  philosophical  or 
scientific  basis,  I  proclaim  them  as  a  guiding  (or,  as  he 
says,  regulative)  law  for  human  kind  prescribed  by  prac- 
tical reason. 

So  the  categorical  imperative  is  exactly  the  same  way 
of  teaching  ethics  as  that  of  the  religionists,  who  stand 
on  the  ten  commandments  given  by  God.  Since,  accord- 
ing to  Kant,  religion  does  not  afford  any  longer  a  basis 
for  ethics,  and  since  he  can  not  dispense  with  morals,  he 
makes  ethics  absolute,  standing  on  nothing,  as  though 
hovering  in  the  empty  space.  That  imperative  is  cate- 
gorical and  no  question  is  answered  as  to  its  reason, 
justification  or  legitimation. 

Ethics,  as  taught  by  dogmatic  religion,  is  as  though  it 
were  for  children.  God  wills  it  so  ;  therefore  obey.  By 
obedience  children  should  show  their  love,  confidence  and 
reverence  toward  their  parents.  Obedience  is  the  car- 
dinal virtue  required.  And  in  the  domain  of  religion, 
indeed,  it  could  not  be  otherwise.  For  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  religion  must  attend  to  the  spiritual  wants  and 
must  satisfy  the  devout  cravings  and  longings  of  the  civ- 


68  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

ilized  races  as  well  as  of  barbaric  tribes.  And  Christianity 
takes  the  highest  possible  view,  as  it  requires  an  obe- 
dience not  from  fear  but  from  love.  Religion  is  no  philo- 
sophy, but  serves  other  purposes.  While  philosophy 
explains  ethics  scientifically,  religion  simply  preaches 
morals.  Hence  religious  commandments  have  some- 
thing personal  about  them.  So  they  are  liable  to  inspire 
enthusiasm,  just  as  feudal  allegiance  made  knights  die  for 
their  lieges.  Kant  deprives  the  religious  ethics  of  their 
poetic  charm,  leaving  merely  their  grandeur  and  sublim- 
ity. Thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  we  feel  chilly  among  the 
glaciers  on  the  Alpine  hights  of  pure  reason  ;  and  where- 
ever  such  ethics  are  taught,  we  move  in  spheres  of  an 
abstraction  which  seems  superhuman.  Virtue  is  no  longer 
fervid  love  ;  it  is  crystalized  to  ice,  and  frigid  reflection 
has  congealed  all  enthusiasm  into  the  cold  idea  of  duty, 
according  to  abstract  rules ;  and  morals  no  longer  well 
up  like  the  living  waters  of  a  spring,  but  operate  like  the 
correctly  calculated  gear  of  a  machine. 

According  to  the  ethics  of  pure  reason,  that  virtue  is 
highest  which  is  performed  against  our  own  inclination. 
Schiller,  though  an  admirer  of  Kant,  ridicules  the  rigi- 
dity of  his  ethics  in  one  of  his  Xenions.     The  poet  says  : 

"Willingly  serve  I  my  friends  ;  but  t'is  pity,  I  do  it  with  pleasure. 
And  I  am  really  vexed,  that  there's  no  virtue  in  me  !" 

And  he  answers  in  a  second  distich  : 

"There  is  no  other  advice  than  that  you  try  to  despise  friends, 
And,  with  disgust,  you  will  do  what  such  a  duty  demands." 

§  4.      OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM. 

The  religionist's  and  in  the  same  way  the  transcend- 
ental philosopher's  ethics  are  not  satisfactory.  But  the 
hedonist  has  no  right  to  scoff  at  or  mock  the  theory,  for 


ETHICS.  69 

he  gives  nothing  better.  He  is  entangled  in  one  funda- 
mental error,  and  that  is  that  he  supposes  man  to  be  liv- 
ing in  this  world  in  order  to  be  or  to  become  happy.  Ac- 
cording to  his  theory,  happiness  is  the  aim  and  purpose 
of  life,  and  all  human  aspiration  serve  this  end.  That  is 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  doctrine,  and  the  same  is  taught  by 
Mr.  Lester  F.  Ward  in  his  Dynamical  Sociology.  This 
philosopher  overlooks  entirely  the  fact  that  happiness 
can  not  be  defined.  Happiness  and  its  essence  is  too  re- 
lative a  thing.  If  it  be  the  state  of  mind  in  which  we 
feel  at  ease,  I  think  that  a  well-fed  pig  is  a  more  prac- 
tical philosopher  than  any  great  man  or  sage.  The  feli- 
city of  man  depends  much  more  upon  his  character  and 
his  nature  than  upon  any  thing  else  ;  and  a  development 
of  this  will  not  necessarily  evolve  happiness.  Quite  the 
contrary  !  Very  often,  it  will  lead  him  into  danger, 
destruction  and  death. 

With  regard  to  the  optimism  generally  exhibited  by 
the  hedonists,  I  have  to  say  in  accordance  with  Schopen- 
hauer, the  great  pessimist,  that  the  world  would  be  a 
failure,  if  its  chief  purpose  were  really  happiness.  We  do 
not  live  to  be  happy.  Our  inmost  nature  compels  us  to 
perform  some  tasks  in  the  service  of  some  thing  higher 
than  our  personal  existence,  be  it  in  the  field  of  science 
or  art,  be  it  by  inventions  or  by  extending  trade  and 
commerce  or  by  the  propagation  and  education  of  pos- 
terity ;  in  one  word,  be  it  by  any  progress  or  improve- 
ment, we  are  compelled  to  do  some  thing  in  the  service 
of  humanity.  And  this  task  appears  to  us  as  a  duty, 
which  must  be  done  even  at  the  sacrifice  of  comfort,  ease 
and  happiness  ;  and  a  successful  performance  of  this  duty 
is  the  highest,  nay  the  only  happiness  of  man. 

Pessimism  has  been  preached  as  religion  and  taught  as 
philosophy ;  in  either  case  it  has  vanquished  optimism 
wherever  they  have  met.    Buddhism  conquered  the  whole 


70  MOXISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

of  Eastern  Asia,  and  it  is  still  to-day  the  most  widespread 
religion  on  earth.  And  to  Christianity  the  western  half 
of  the  world  seems  to  be  surrendered.  Christianity,  like 
Buddhism,  is  a  pessimistic  religion,  which  preaches  that 
the  world  is  bad  in  its  foundation.  The  prince  of  this 
world  is  the  devil,  who  allures  and  entices  to  transient 
sham  happiness.  Christ  came  into  this  life  to  suffer  and 
die,  in  order  that  he  might  show  the  way  of  salvation. 
Man  is  a  stranger,  a  pilgrim  in  this  world,  and  destined 
to  suffer  for  the  purpose  of  purifying  his  soul.  The  symbol 
of  Christianity  is  the  cross,  an  instrument  of  penal  torture, 
and  indeed  in  those  times  the  most  infamous  one  as  cruci- 
fixion was  the  capital  punishment  for  slaves  and  criminals. 
Certainly,  this  world  does  not  exist  for  happiness,  or 
Christianity  would  not  have  subdued  the  most  civilized 
races  on  earth.  And  in  the  province  of  philosophy, 
Schopenhauer  has  forever  defeated  optimism.  He  has 
proved  conclusively  that  the  commonly-looked-for  happi- 
ness, which  is  usually  sought,  is  an  illusion,  and  that  life 
itself  is  a  boon  of  doubtful  value  which  in  most  instances 
we  would  be  better  rid  of.  He  characterizes  himself  with 
the  words  of  Mephistopheles  in  Goethe's  Faust  : 

"  I  am  the  spirit  that  denies, 
And  justly  so,  for  all  things  from  the  void 
Called  forth  deserve  to  be  destroyed  ; 
'T  were  better  then,  were  naught  created." 

§  5.      MELIORISM   AND   THE   ETHICS   OF   MELIORISM. 

But  pessimism,  though  it  was  and  ever  will  be  victor- 
ious in  the  face  of  optimism,  is  not  by  any  means  what 
we  should  advocate  as  our  contemplation  of  the  world. 
We  have  not  space  to  argue  at  length  the  pro  and  con  of 
this  question.  However,  what  pessimism  has  taught  is 
that  life  in  itself  has  no  value,  yet  that  it  may  acquire 


ETHICS.  71     ^ 

some  by  what  it  contains.  If  our  days  are  empty  of  any 
action  worthy  to  be  done,  then  they  are  indeed  spent  as 
a  tale  that  is  told,  although  they  may  be  four  score  years 
or  more  ;  yet  is  their  strength  labor  and  sorrow,  i  For  a 
life  worthy  to  be  lived  is  one  that  is  full  of  active  aspira-  \ 
tion,  for  something  higher  and  better ;  and  such  a  con- 
templation of  the  world  we  call  meliorism.  Let  the  world 
be  bad  !  our  duty  is  to  work  with  steady  labor  for  its 
improvement.  And  this  aspiration  for  enhancing  and 
progressing,  which  dwells  in  our  souls  as  a  categoric 
imperative,  is  more  than  simply  a  regulative  law,  which 
we  accept  not  so  much  for  ourselves  as  for  the  benefit  of 
the  community  and  for  the  human  race  in  general, 
through  fear  that  egotism  and  anarchy  will  destroy 
society  and  ourselves  into  the  bargain. 

Meliorism  and  the  ethics  of  meliorism  have  a  better 
foundation.  It  is  no  mere  regulative  law,  prescribing 
what  ought  to  be,  but  it  is  a  natural  law  ruling  the  deve- 
lopment and  progress  of  the  world.  Nor  could  it  be 
otherwise.  Let  us  spy  into  the  nature  of  man  as  scien- 
tists spy  into  the  objects  of  their  studies,  and  we  shall 
find,  that  the  very  core  and  inmost  quality  of  the  world  is 
moral  ;  not  as  the  religionists  or  orthodox  usually  sup- 
pose, immoral  ;  nor  does  it  lead,  as  the  hedonists  imagine, 
to  the  happiness  of  egotism. 

We  believe  that  human  society  could  not  even  exist, 
nor  could  have  risen  into  existence,  if  there  were  not  an 
ethical  law  governing  the  affairs  of  the  world,  especially 
those  of  man.  Any  social  body  is  possible  only  on  the 
basis  of  morality  ;  and  morality,  though  in  an  ampler 
sense  of  the  word,  is  a  universal  law,  ruling  the  universe 
and  arranging  progress  in  any  development. 


72  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

§  6.      MELIORISM   AND   THE   THEORY   OF   EVOLUTION. 

Darwin,  no  doubt,  has  been  mistaken  in  many  details 
of  his  system  ;  there  is,  however,  one  point,  which  may 
be  regarded  as  generally  accepted  by  scientists,  viz.,  the 
theory  of  evolution.  It  is  not  at  all  proved,  and  scarcely 
ever  can  be,  that  all  animals  on  earth  descend  from  the 
same  cell.  It  is,  however,  more  than  probable  that  every 
kind  of  being,  as  it  exists  at  present,  was  not  fully  deve- 
loped from  the  beginning,  but  had  to  pass  through  a  long 
process  of  evolution.  So  the  primordial  life  consisted  of 
cells,  and  organisms  arose  from  different  combinations  of 
the  same. 

Cells  possess  all  properties  of  organic  beings  :  ali- 
mentation, growth,  and  propagation.  A  mother-cell, 
having  divided  itself  and  thus  produced  new  cells,  is  still 
connected  with  these  filial  cells,  and  in  their  union  they 
are  more  fit  to  encounter  the  struggle  for  life.  Hence- 
forth the  work  to  be  done  for  their  preservation  is  divided 
and  dispensed  in  such  a  way  that  some  cells  perform  one, 
other  cells  an  other  function  for  the  unity  thus  created. 
It  is  division  ojj^orkj^according  to  a  general  plan  ;  and 
that  is  whatxijnstitutes^n  organism.  The  single  organ 
or  limb  of  a  body  does^rrot  exist  for  itself  any  more,  but 
serves  the  idea  of  a  larger  unity  of  which  it  feels  itself 
to  be  a  part.  The  purpose,  aim  and  end  of  its  existence 
is  forthwith  not  in  itself  but  in  some  thing  higher  than 
itself.  This  principle  pervades  all  organic  nature.  Or- 
ganisms can  not  exist  but  under  this  condition  ;  and  this 
principle  is  ethical. 

The  same  principle  which  produced  organisms  and  ani- 
mals guides  them  in  their  further  development ;  and  only 
so  far  as  any  creature  is  animated  by  this  ethical  guid- 
ance is  it  able  to  develop  into  some  higher  thing.  It  is 
the  star  of  Bethlehem  that  leads  the  foremost  men  of  all 


ETHICS.  73 

human  races  to  the  cradle  where  a  new  truth  is  born  and 
the  germ  of  a  new  idea  is  thriving.  So  man  and  the 
society  of  man  rest  on  the  same  principle.  The  first 
higher  unity  is  the  family  ;  families  grow  into  tribes,  and 
tribes  form  nations.  The  love  of  parents  has  broadened 
into  patriotism,  and  no  doubt  the  next  higher  ideal  will 
be  that  of  humanity.  The  next  higher  stage  to  which 
development  ever  tends  is  the  ideal,  and  there  will  be  no 
rest  in  the  minds  of  the  single  individuals  until  this  ideal 
is  realized.  After  that,  new  ideals  arise  and  lead  on  the 
interminable,  infinite  path  of  progress,  not  as  Darwin 
says,  merejy  ruled  by  thejamous  law^of  the  struggle  for 
life,  but  enhanced  by  '^^_^rife  for  the  ideal. 


§  7.     THE    ETHICAL   PRINCIPLE    NOT   A   MERE   CONSTITU- 
TIONAL  BUT   A   NATURAL   LAW. 

This  ethical  principle  is  no  mere  constitutional  law, 
proposed  by  a  legislature  as  fitted  to  serve  the  majority. 
It  is,  as  we  have  learned,  a  natural  law  pervading  the 
universe  ;  and  a  scientist  must  be  blind  to  facts  if  he  does 
not  discover  it.  Even  in  the  organic  world,  I  venture  to 
say,  this  law  rules,  though  in  a  broader  sense.  Gravita- 
tion forms  out  of  a  whirlpool  of  gaseous  materials  well- 
arranged  solar  systems.  It  is  the  law  of  order  and  unity 
which  dispenses  to  different  bodies   the  different  parts  to  ^^,^^ 

be  performed.  The  law  oLgrayitation  seems  so  plain  and^  \  P"^  ^ 
simple,  and  is  so  grand  in  its  justice,  that,  according  to 
the  rules  of  pure  mechanics,  we  perceive  that  it  cannot 
be  otherwise.  It  is  the  ethical  law  of  primordial  matter  ; 
and  if  the  single  atoms  of  a  nebula  which  are  ranging 
still  in  different  directions,  could  tell  us  their  ideal,  it 
would  be  that  of  a  fully-regulated  solar  system.  The 
chaos  will  clear,  according  to  simple  mechanical  rules. 


74  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

the  ideal  will  be  realized,  and  the  general  turmoil  will 
give  way  to  order. 

I  could  never  understand  how  the  theory  of  evolution 
could  be  arraigned  for  undermining  the  ethical  feeling  and 
moral  aspirations  of  man.  It  will  prove  to  be  doing 
exactly  the  reverse.  An  ethical  conception  of  life,  we 
should  say,  is  not  possible  without  it. 

The  dogmatic  theologian  bases  his  morals  on  the  ten 
commandments  of  Moses,  ultimately  resting  on  the 
authority  of  God.  Now  this  is  a  sufficient  foundation  for 
morals  to  be  preached  to  the  people,  but  not  for  ethics  to 
be  scientifically  justified  and  traced  to  their  origin.  The 
freethinkers,  as  represented  by  Mr.  Spencar  and  others, 
have  no  ethics,  though  they  may  preach  m.orals,  and  they 
are  standing  on  the  wrong  principle  that  man  lives  to 
be  happy.  Let  them  rather  look  at  the  world  as  it  is. 
True  ethical  aspiration  produces  happiness,  though  not  to 
the  aspiring  individual.  Look  at  the  misery  resulting 
from  this  strife !  How  many  individuals  sacrifice  them- 
selves for  the  ideal  till  some  one  of  their  successors  strid- 
ing over  their  dead  bodies  is  at  last  victorious.  Yet 
though  successful,  not  even  he  is  happy.  Personally  he 
does  not  reap  the  fruit  of  his  trouble,  and  though  the 
thorny  crown  of  martyrdom  may  become  his  glory  after 
his  death,  yet  during  his  life  he  merely  feels  the  pricks  of 
the  spines. 

§  8.  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE  IDEAL. 

This  world  is  not  a  world  of  happiness  then,  but  of 
ethical  aspiration.  Its  essence  is  evolution  or  a  constant 
realizing  of  new  ideals.  True,  it  is  the  struggle  for  life  ; 
but  if  you  look  at  it  more  exactly,  is  it  life  indeed,  that 
the  progressive  part  of  humanity  is  striving  for  .''  No, 
they  sacrifice  even  their  lives   for  some  higher  purpose, 


ETHICS.  75 

for  the  ideal.  Would  it  not  be  a  strange  contradiction  to 
say  that  people  are  consciously  sacrificing  and  losing 
their  lives  in  a  struggle  for  life  ? 

So  according  to  the  doctrine  of  monism  and  meliorism, 
to  live  naturally  becomes  identical  with  aspiring  morally. 
The  innate  qualities  and  talents  which  appear  to  be  pre- 
sented by  nature,  and  which  therefore  are  justly  called 
gifts,  according  to  the  theory  of  evolution  are  faculties 
inherited  from  ancestors.  The  labor  of  former  genera- 
tions is  not  lost  ;  its  fruit  has  been  preserved  and  handed 
down  to  the  generation  now  living.  This  fact  has  a 
profound  ethical  import  !  There  is  nothing  without 
work  in  this  world.  That  easy  and  apparently  effortless 
production  which  we  admire  in  genius,  is  not  possible  but 
by  inherited  abilities  acquired  by  the  labor  o;  ancestors. 
The  single  man,  therefore,  ought  to  be  conscious  of  being 
the  product  of  the  labor  of  ages.  And  what  he  does, 
be  it  evil  or  good,  will  live  after  him  so  far  as  his  indivi- 
duality impresses  itself  and  influences  his  contemporaries. 
In  consideration  of  this  fact,  man  may  think  with  more 
revej-ence  of  the  past,  and  in  respect  to  the  future  he  will 
form  his  life  with  more  earnestJiess. 

Let  us  now  return  to  Kant  and  his  categorical  impera- 
tive ;  he  imagined  that  freedom  and  causality  formed  an 
antinomy,  and  so  he  teaches  his  doctrine  oi^'miisf'  in  hi'^ 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  while  that  of  the  ^'  oiigJif'  has  its 
place  in  his  Critique  of  Practical  Reason.  In  the  system 
of  Monism  the  contradiction  is  eliminated  so  entirely, 
that  the  must  and  the  ought  are  found,  to  some  extent, 
identical.  And  just  the  theory  of  evolution  widely  criti- 
cized for  a  lack  of  ethics  contitutes  the  ougJit  as  the  main 
spring  in  the  struggle  for  tJie  ideal.  Ask  a  man  like 
Kepler  or  Gallileo,  or  any  hero  in  science  or  art,  or  industry, 
or  of  any  useful  craft  who  during  his  life  endured  hard- 
ships and  pain — ask  James  Watt,  who  gave  almost  the 


I 


y6  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

whole  time  of  his  life,  his  best  efforts,  his  property,  small 
as  it  was,  for  his  invention  and  did  not  reap  the  least  part 
of  the  immense  emoluments  which  it  produced  to  later 
generations — ask  any  such  man,  whether  he  considers  his 
life  worth  living.  It  may  be  that  he  endured  often 
moments  of  despair,  that  he  was  tired  of  the  many 
troubles  and  misery,  and  that,  dying,  he  says:  "I  am 
glad  that  it  is  over!  It  is  finished!"  However,  place 
again  before  him  a  new  life,  conscious  of  similar  aspira- 
tions, give  him  an  ideal  and  the  hope  of  attaining  it, 
and  he  will  endure  the  same  hardships,  will  suffer  the 
same  misery,  will  abstain  from  pleasure,  resign  happiness, 
merely  for  the  great  aim  before  his  eyes,  which  becomes 
the  purpose  of  his  life. 

§  9.      CONCLUSION. 

The  ethics  of  meliorism,  as  here  explained,  character- 
izes the  general  tendency  of  morality  and  traces  moral 
actions  to  their  source.  However,  it  can  not  teach  a  priori 
what  are  the  morals  of  to-day  or  }'esterday,  what  is  the 
ethical  ideal  of  America,  what  is  that  of  Germany,  or 
that  of  England.  The  standard  of  morality  is  different, 
and  the  ideal  of  ethics  is  changing,  according  to  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  men  live.  Different  conditions 
require  different  duties  ;  and  to  different  duties  different 
moral  ideals  correspond.  Usually  we  are  inclined  to 
judge  the  actions  of  men  of  past  times,  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  moral  ideas  of  to-day.  But  that  is  entirely 
wrong,  and  many  apparently  barbarous  deeds  are  jusitifi- 
able — even  right,  with  regard  to  the  circumstances  and 
requirements  of  their  era.  If  some  hero  of  olden  times 
had  acted  according  to  the  higher  and  better  ideal  of 
these  latter  days,  it  would  have  been  considered  (and 
sometimes  perhaps  justly)  as  weakness  on  his  part.      For 


ETHICS.  yy 

though  the  ethical  tendency,  aspiring  toward  ameliora- 
tion, is  the  same  throughout,  yet  the  evolution  of  the 
ethical  idea  shows  different  stages.  History  traces  the 
causes  of  these  differences,  and  in  every  case  must  point 
out  the  reason  by  which  it  is  changed  in  this  or  that  way. 

Yet  the  ideal  is  no  mere  fiction,  it  is  a  power  of 
reality,  pervading  the  universe  as  A-laAVjof  nature  ;  and 
with  regard  to  humanity  it  points  out  to  man  the  path  of 
progress.  ProgressTTf  it  is^guTded  By  the  ideal,  will  pro- 
duce new  and  better  eras  for  humankind.  And  if  a  moral 
tendency  were  not  the  fundamental  la.w  of  nature,  there 
could  not  be  any  advancement,  development,  or  evolu- 
tion. ^ 

As  we  judge  about  the  character  of  a  man  from  his 
actions,  or  rather  from  the  purposes  which  he  pursues,  so 
we  may  learn  also  what  the  character  of  the  final  prin- 
ciple of  the  world  is,  from  the  finis  or  aim  of  its  evolu- 
tion. And  so  meliorism  completes  and  supplements  the 
doctrine  of  monism  in  establishing  the  truth  that  the 
final  principle  of  the  world  is  ethical. 


Definitions  and  Explanations. 

The  following  list   of  definitions  will  serve  to  explain 

the  standpoint  of  Monism. 

Idealism  is  that  conception  of  the  world  which  takes 
the  subject  as  its  starting-point. 
According  to  Berkeley  and  his  idealism  the  subject  only 

exists  and  what  we  call  things  are  the  concepts  of  the 

subject.     Such  outre  idealism  is  called  spiritualism. 

Spiritualism  explains  the  world  solely  from  spirit,  {i.e., 

the  substance  of  which  the  subject  is  supposed  to 

consist),  and  assumes  that  matter  does  not  exist. 

{^Spiritualism   is    to    be    carefully   distinguished 

from  Spiritism,  the  latter  being  the  belief  in  spirits.] 

Critical  Idealism.  According  to  Kant,  the  subject  is 
the  datum  of  philosophy  ;  and  the  subject's  con- 
ceptions a  priori  {i.  e.,  space,  time  and  pure  reason) 
are  transcendental.  With  objects  we  become  ac- 
quainted by  means  of  sensation.  But  objects  as 
we  conceive  them  in  time  and  space  are  mere 
phenomena  of  the  mind,  time  and  space  being  sub- 
jective and  applied  to  objects  by  and  from  the  sub- 
ject. So  the  things  (or  objects  as  they  are  for 
themselves  and  independent  of  our  conception) 
can  not  be  perceived  or  known. 

Realism  is  that  concption  of  the  world,  which  takes  the 
object  as  its  starting  point. 
Naturally  scientists  take  this  view,  as  it  is  sufficient 

for  investigations  in  the   single  departments   of  nature. 

Philosophically,  however,  realism  lacks  a  foundation,  as 

it   is    an    assumption    to  take  the  reality   of  the  world 

granted  beforehand. 


DEFLYITIONS  AND   EXPLANATIONS.  79 

Materialism,  or  the  outre  realism,  explains  the  world 
solely  from  matter  {i.  e.,  the  substance  of  which  the 
object  is  supposed  to  consist).     Spirit  is  merely  a 
function  of  matter. 
When  realism,  overshooting  the  mark,  ventures  to  de- 
clare that  cognition  arises  merely  from  sensations,  as  did 
Locke    (and   in    such  a  case   it  is  called  sensualism)  its 
consequence  is  scepticism. 

Scepticism  (as  taught  by  David  Hume)  is  the  conception 
of  the  world  according  to  which  exact  cognizance 
is  impossible. 
Monism  takes  in  all  cases  the  central  position  between 
the  extremes.  It  establishes  07ie  final  principle, 
producing  all  (i)  motion  in  the  world.  The  vehicle 
or  agency  of  its  efficacy  is  (2)  matter,  which  means 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  reality  of  existence. 
(3)  Space  is  the  form  in  which  it  is  displayed.  All 
regularity,  all  order,  all  arrangement  is  according 
to  the  laws  of  space.  Even  logical  truths  are 
demonstrated  by  mathematical  figures.  Time  is 
merely  the  measure  of  motion.  And  so  space,  in 
its  most  abstract  sense,  means  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  order. 

1.  All  truths  depending  on  space  are  accessible 
to  internal  cognizance. 

2.  All  facts  and  phenomena  produced  by  the 
properties  of  matter  are  accessible  to  external  cog- 
nizance. 

1.  Internal  cognizance  is  intuition,  and  so-called 
pure  thought  (by  Kant  styled  a  priori^ 

2.  External  cognizance  is  sensation,  and, 

3.  a  scientific  insight  into  nature  is  only  possible 
by  a  combination  of  the  two. 


80  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

According  to  Monism 

Idealism  is  right  in  so  far  that  knowledge  rests  en  inter- 
nal cognizance  (the  transcendental  ideas  of  Kant). 

Realism  is  right  in  so  far  that  the  reality  of  things  is 
proved  by  external  cognizance  {i.  e.,  experience  by 
means  of  sensation). 

Spiritualism  is  right  in  so  far  that  the  inmost  principle 
of  the  world  is  a  spiritual  power. 

Materialism  is  right  in  so  far  that  all  realities  are  material 
existences. 

However, 

Materialism  is  wrong  in  declaring  matter  to  be  the  sole 
principle  of  the  world.  Matter  is  merely  its  out- 
side, not  the  world  itself. 

Spiritualism  is  wrong  in  declaring  that  spirit  exists  in- 
dependently of  matter,  spirit  being  merely  the 
interior  of  the  world,  but  not  the  universe. 

Realism  is  wrong  in  assuming  that  space,  time  and  the 
/  truths  of  pure  reason  are  drawn  from  experience, 

or  in  other  words,  in  denying  the  a  priori. 

Idealism  is  wrong  in  assuming  that  the  transcendental 

ideas  are  subjective,  or  merely  subjective  ;  in  other 

words,  in  denying  the  objectivity  of  time,   space 

and  the  a  prioj'i  truth  generally. 

The  subject,  though  spiritual  in  its  essence  (if  looked  at 

from  the  inside  or  from   the  standpoint  of  the  subject 

itself),  is  on  the  other  hand  a  materially  existing  object. 

And 

Objects  or  things  are  no  dead  materials,  merely  fit  to  be 
acted  upon ;  matter  is  animated  everywhere  by  forces. 
Force  is  the  intrinsic  (and  in  some  respects  a  spiritual) 
property  of  matter. 

Force  and  matter  are  inseparable  ;  and  objective  or 
material  existences  possess,  according  to  the  theory  of 


DEFINITIONS  AND  EXPLANATIONS.  8 1 

evolution,  the  ability  of  developing  into  conscious  sub- 
jectivity. Thus  it  is  proved  that  subjectivity  is  an  intrin- 
sic, though  generally  a  latent  quality  of  the  objects  {i.  <?., 
matter.) 

Optimism  is  that  view  of  life  which  takes  for  granted 
that  the  condition  of  things  is  good,  or  at  least  the 
best  possible.  Man  lives  in  order  to  be  or  to  be- 
come happy.  Happiness  is  the  aim  and  end  of 
humanity. 
Optimism  was  the  naive  Grecian  contemplation  of  life 

and   also   the   ancient    Indian    faith   of  the    Brahmans. 

Naturally  all  strictly  theistic  religions  are  optimistic  ;  so 

is  the  Mosaic  doctrine  of  the    Old  Testament  and  the 

Islam  of  Mohammed. 

Pessimism  holds  that  the  world  is  bad  and  that  man  is 
to  be  redeemed  or  ransomed  from  the  evil  of  exis- 
tence.    Meditative  intuition  and  suffering  are  the 
way  of  salvation. 
Whenever  man  commences  to  reflect  on  the  purpose  of 
life,  pessimism  will  arise  and  will  overwhelm  the  prior  opti- 
mism.    The   pessimistic  religions    are   the  doctrines  of 
Gautama  Buddha  as  well  as  of  Jesus  Christ.     The  pessi- 
mistic philosopher  of  modern  date  is  Arthur  Schopen- 
hauer. 

Meliorism  has  often  been  used  in  the  sense  that 
humanity,  though  at  present  not  in  a  state  of  happiness, 
will  nevertheless  reach  by  and  by  such  an  existence,  in 
which  the  miseries  of  our  days  will  be  impossible.  That, 
however,  is  a  kind  of  optimism.  For  in  spite  of  all 
amelioration,  happiness  will  remain  about  the  same.  It 
is  relative,  and  Schopenhauer  justly  likens  it  to  a  frac- 
tion, the  denominator  of  which  represents  our  desires 
and  the  numerator  their  gratifications.  Every  progress 
allows  to  increase  each  of  the  two. 


82  MONISM  AND  MELIORISM. 

The  source  of  error  in  pessimism  is  that  life  is  supposed 
to  be  the  purpose  of  life,  or  what  means  the  same  thing, 
that  there  is  no  purpose  of  life  at  all.  This  error  is  inher- 
ited from  optimism  ;  and  from  this  standpoint,  pessimism 
does  not  consider  life  to  be  worth  its  own  troubles. 

Monism,  however,  teaches  that  the  cosmos  has  some 
destined  end  or  finis  which  makes  all  lives  parts  of  the 
universal  display  of  life,  and  so  there  is  some  purpose  in 
living  beyond  the  range  of  the  individual  life.     And  so 
Meliorism,  according  to  our  view,  accepts  the  truth  of 
pessimism,  that  life  for  itself  is  without  value.    The 
value  of  life  lies  in  what  it  contains ;  its  worth  is 
its  weight  or  sum  of  labor  performed  in  the  aspira- 
tion after  progress. 

The  virtues  of  OPTIMISM  (as  defined  by  Plato)  are 
7.  continence  or  self-cont7'ol,  2.  courage,  j.  wisdom,  and 
/f..  justice.  It  is  what  Schopenhauer  calls  Bejahung  des 
Willens  zum  Leben,  the  affirmation  of  the  will  to  life  {i.  e., 
the  intent  of  living). 

The  morality  of  PESSIMISM  preaches  humility.  Accord- 
ing to  its  teaching  repentance  is  the  beginning  of  a  new 
life,  and  the  trefoil  of  its  virtues  \s  faith,  hope  dind  charity. 
It  is  what  Schopenhauer  calls  Veriteinung  des  Willens  zum 
Lcben,  denial  of  the  will  to  life. 

The  ethical  ideal  of  Meliorism  is  V^ORK.  The  purpose 
of  life  and  the  duty  of  man  is  activity  and  labor  in  the 
service  of  amelioration.  It  is  what  Afrcd  Weber  calls 
Wille  zum  Guten. 

Optimistic  morality  is  positive  and  its  essence  is  en- 
nobled and  elevated  egotism.  It  represents  the 
thesis  of  ethics. 
Pessimistic  morality  is  Jiegative  and  its  essence  is 
altruism;  it  is  the  antithesis,  apparently  in  con- 
tradiction to  the  first. 


DEFINITIONS  AND  EXPLANATIONS.  83 

Melioristic  morality  is  akin  to  both ;  it  is  the  third 
stage,  produced  by  a  combination  of  the  two. 
It  is  positive  like  the  first  and  yet  altruistic  like 
the  second. 
Its  scientific  and  philosophic  foundation  is  Monism,  and 
as  Monism  is  the  theoretical  solution  of  prior  antithetics, 
so  Meliorism  is,  with  regard  to  practical  ends,  the  recon- 
ciliation between  the  moral  principles  of  optimism  and 
pessimism.     As  such  it  will  undoubtedly  be  the  ethical 
ideal  of  the  future. 


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